Stars in a Time Warp 26: Pillar Prints

Reproduction star by Becky Brown

featuring a pillar print.

Vintage Pillar Print with a yellow ground

The early nineteenth-century mania for stripes created a vogue for a pattern variation that textile historians today call pillar prints. Design echoes the classical architecture of ancient Greece and Rome with stripes assuming the form of fluted, rounded columns interrupted by ornate capitals and garlands of flowers. 

Blue blotch ground behind a pillar print

Other names for the designs are “architectural prints” or "columnar prints."

Pillar prints were a specialty of England's textile mills. The French, the Dutch, and the Swiss had no interest in printing or using them. A major market was Americans who were styling their new nation on the ideals of ancient Greece.

Two pillar prints for the American market

Americans infatuated with all forms of classical design favored large-scale pillar print between 1800 and 1840. The designs were not only printed in full-chintz colors but as monochrome toiles.

Early-19th-century quilt from an ad in The Clarion,

Summer, 1989. Pillar print in the border.

 Florence McConnell's reproduction of the Borden Family Quilt at the 

New England Quilt Museum below.

Florence interpreted the original at smaller scale for the

American Quilt Study Group's Star Study, 2010.

Detail of Florence's with repro pillar print.

Another quilt with the same pillar print border (?) from the 

New England Quilt Museum.

Pillar prints seem to have been quite popular with New England quilters in the 1810-1840 years.

Sarah's Nine Patch reproduction,

using the copy of the antique print below.

Lorie sez in the comments:
"I believe [this] one ... is actually by Lisa DeBee Shiller for Timeless Treasures"

The Shiller Pillar?

NOT Colossal Columns by Kathy Hall from the American Folk Art Museum

Bettina's repro star

captures the out-of-scale look that

we often see in early patchwork.

I found this piece of the same print in purple

Becky fussy-cut 

to make a vivid star.

Source for this antique medallion? 

The center star is pieced of pillar print fragments

Reminding you that even if you don't want to feature a particular print you can include scraps to create an authentic look.

Reproductions

Lately Arrived from London

I've reproduced several pillar prints over the years.

See Sandra Starley's quilt made with this print here:
http://starleyquilts.blogspot.com/2011/08/1830s-eagle.html

Above and below, two by Nancy Gere

Terry Thompson and I did this reproduction in Coral Gardens.

It's the same print that's in this detail

Chintz quilt with pillar print border.

Collection of the Spencer Museum of Art.

What to Do With Your Stack of Stars?

Use pillar prints for the setting blocks and border with a chintz.

Pillar Prints set in every direction in an early quilt top from the collection of

Old Sturbridge Village

http://resources.osv.org/explore_learn/collection_viewer.php?N=26.23.55#

Historic New England has a similar quilt:

http://www.historicnewengland.org/collections-archives-exhibitions/collections-access/collection-object/capobject?gusn=GUSN-48749

Another star and pillar from the Crane House on

Barbara Schaffer's blog

http://barbaradschaffer.blogspot.com/2011/07/quilts-at-crane-house.html

Sumptuous Stars by Barb Vedder

www.funwithbarb.com

www.funwithbarbandmary@blogspot.com.

A chintz pillar print for the border.

Other chintz border ideas...

(A review of the last few weeks)

Dark ground chintz (vintage quilt from William Bunch Auctions)

Or a light ground as in this Broderie Perse Quilt by Fannie E Wright & Eliza Bacon

A Fancy machine ground

Quilt from Historic Deerfield Museum

A blue blotch ground

From collection of Marilyn Woodin

A border stripe

One More Thing About Pillar Prints

The term "pillar print" seems to be rather recent, a mid-twentieth-century description. The earliest reference I have found to fabric by searching Google's digitized books in a 1956 British publication. 

The term is more commonly used to describe Japanese wood blocks on paper, in which a pillar print (hashira-ye) is a long, narrow print meant to hang from a wooden pillar in a house.

Read more about pillar prints at a post here:

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2011/09/pillar-prints.html

See Laura Syler's Pinterest page

https://www.pinterest.com/laurasyler/pillar-prints/