Tumbling blocks quilts are my favorite--so optically compelling, and keeping the eye forever moving around. This piece--a fragment or all there ever was I'm not sure--consists of hundreds of small fabric squares (most of them silk it appears to me) sewn together, with white basting stitches--which would be used to secure the quilt top to a backing-- still in place; I have not removed it from the frame so am not sure what it was backed with. I rather like those white stitches as a sort of looser form of mark making on top of the meticulous piecework, and as a document of process. Viewed from a distance, this is very strong and crisp, all about color and graphic pattern, but then it's got another sort of intimacy viewed up close between those basting stitches and more subtle patterns on the some of the fabrics. I would guess the quilt dates to the early 20th c.
21 5/16" x 19 1/4" framed, as found, and in very good condition. There is one tiny bit of what looks like brown paper caught inside the frame, which I believe will likely shake to one edge sooner than later; minor and of course easily removed if one were to open. the frame.
