Lot 165: Pieced and Appliqued Cotton Patchwork Quilt, stitched by Mrs. Owen Brown, mother of John Brown, Illinois, c. 1850, composed of twenty-f

Pieced and Appliqued Cotton Patchwork Quilt, stitched by Mrs. Owen Brown, mother of John Brown, Illinois, c. 1850, composed of twenty-five full rosettes, twenty half rosettes, and four quarter rosettes of homespun white cotton with red-printed and solid light blue appliqued borders, edged with solid blue cotton, and backed with white homespun cotton flour sacks, (imperfections), 84 x 80 in.

Provenance: The history of this well-documented quilt is listed and is illustrated in American Patchwork Quilts, Lenice Ingraham Bacon (William Morrow & Co., New York 1973), pp. 78-9. Bacon writes: "The quilt top was made in Illinois by Mrs. Owen Brown, the mother of John Brown the Abolitionist. Mrs. Brown was engaged in the business of helping to outfit covered wagons going farther west. When a niece and her family were leaving Illinois for Sacramento, California (arriving there in 1851 according to family letters), Mrs. Brown gave her some quilts, including this unfinished quilt top. The niece happened to also be named Mrs. Brown, and it was her daughter who prized the quilt top and made it into the finished quilt, constructing the lining from commercial flour bags, and doing the quilting herself. She would never allow the quilt to be used, hence its excellent condition...In time this same daughter of Mrs. Brown gave the quilt to her own daughter, Katherine Leslie, who came to Connecticut to live. The quilt later became the property of a friend, Paul Pickhardt, who in turn gave it to his sister, Mrs. Jere Coleman, of Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was sold to the author [Lenice I. Bacon], in March,1966." After a time the quilt was sold to the consignor. Several pieces of provenance in the form of correspondence and documentation about the quilt accompany the lot.