Donation to Center Returns A Curiosity Bedspread to Home State

Believing that quilts belong at home, a dealer and collector of fine quilts has donated one that originated in Duck Hill to the Center. Information stitched on the quilt reveals that the work, named A Curiosity Bedspread, was created in 1935 by 68-year-old Avery Burton with Sears, Roebuck and Company goods. Attached is the entry form to the national Sears "Make-It- Yourself" Contest, as is the remnant of the green award of merit ribbon Burton received in that contest.

"Circumstances surrounding the quilt's return to Mississippi have made it a meaningful contribution for me," said Shelly Zegart of Louisville, Kentucky, donor of the quilt. "Because of my involvement in the first of the state quilt projects, it is especially important to me that quilts with strong documentation from a particular area be returned home whenever possible."

Zegart cofounded the State Quilt Project, which documented the quilts of states with the purpose of trying to keep those heirlooms in their states. Now a buyer and seller of fine quilts, Zegart acquired A Curiosity Bedspread when she first began collecting almost 30 years ago. "I bought it sight unseen and, at the time, it was the most money I had ever spent on a quilt," she said. "The focus of my own collecting has been pictorial art that ties the maker to the quilt. I would like to have met this quilter. She is making her statement."

Zegart believes Burton was influenced by the album quilts of the 19th century because of the quilt's form and some of the shapes of both the animals and butterflies she included.

Although the collector refers to it as a quilt, she said the 74-inch-by-75-inch Curiosity Bedspread is actually a summer coverlet--made of cotton, pieced and appliqued. Several styles of embroidery stitches connect blocks with appliques of animals--chickens, cows, horses, pigs, ducks, cats, dogs, squirrels, birds, and peacocks--evidently important to the designer's life.

The menagerie is presided over by two figures in the spread's center: a man with an open shirt, blue checked tie, and embroidered brown belt and shoes; and a woman with an aqua fabric dress, pleated down the front, and trimmed with a black belt and collar. Other details include her red necklace and black shoes, as well as a bouquet of embroidered flowers.

A Curiosity Bedspread has been featured in numerous publications and exhibited at quilt shows in Paducah, Kentucky; Nashville, Tennessee; Birmingham, Michigan; and Houston, Texas. When Zegart was invited to speak and display the quilt at Material Culture, an antique and folk art store in Oxford, she began to consider donating the quilt to the Center.

"I had never been to Mississippi before," said Zegart. "Visiting Oxford and the Center, seeing the quilt in the shop, talking with the people, and reading all the information on the Center made me realize the time was right for the quilt to go back to Mississippi. It came to me that the Center is where the quilt belonged. I knew it would be cared for and honored."

A Curiosity Bedspread will hang at Barnard Observatory, an antebellum building that has been the Center's home since 1979. "We are thrilled with this important gift that symbolizes Mississippi's rich folk culture," said Center director Bill Ferris, who noted that a relative of the quilter--Wiley Pruitt of Kilmichael--has studied at the University and worked with the Center on documentary projects. "This quilt will forever symbolize the art of thousands of women whose needlework has brightened the lives of our people for generations."