This saddle-shaped birch bark panel is elaborately decorated with geometric designs fashioned from dyed porcupine quills.  It is a stunning example of traditional Micmac Indian quillwork dating from circa 1850-60, and has the provenance of past ownership by a distinguished British collector of tribal art.  That this graphic artwork was fashioned as a seat for a formal Victorian chair, and that it ended up in the hands of a European, both make perfect sense in light of the history of how this Native North American Indian craft evolved.

A Bit of History

Micmacs in the Nova Scotia region of Canada have used dyed porcupine quills as decorative ornamentation for hundreds of years, practicing this art long before their contact with Europeans.  Explorers and fishermen who first encountered Micmacs recorded observations of decorative quillwork, such as in this sailor’s account written in 1606:  “…the maids and women do make matachias (bracelets) with the quills or bristles of the porcupine, which they dye black, white and red colours, as lively as possible may be.”  (Whitehead, 1982)*

Given that there are 20,000-30,000 quills on a single porcupine (yes, somebody counted them), they were an abundant source of raw material for handicrafts.

Not long after white people started living and trading among them, Micmacs turned their craftsmanship skills to making objects to sell to Europeans.  They had traditionally used techniques such as stitchery, loom weaving, wrapping and plaiting of porcupine quills to decorate objects for their own use.  They also decorated their birch bark canoes with porcupine quills, so inserting quills into birch bark to make decorative designs was another technique within their traditional repertoire. By the mid-1700s, when the souvenir industry was in full swing, the bark insertion technique had become the Micmac’s dominant form of quill ornamentation.

Birch bark boxes decorated with geometric mosaics of dyed porcupine quills were a staple of the Micmac’s trade with French and English settlers.  European entrepreneurs began buying up these crafts, and ships’ captains would resell them at their ports of call.   By the early 1800s, the sale of quillwork and other Indian crafts in Great Britain had become lucrative enough that their importation was taxed by the British government.

As the fur trade declined throughout the early 19th century, quill work became a primary source of Micmacs’ income. This explains their motivation to adapt quickly to European tastes, which during the Victorian era included fancifying even everyday household items such as tea cosies, straight-edge razor cases, comb boxes and napkin rings.

Sometime around 1840, a European fad for furniture inset with panels of quilled birch bark emerged.  Micmac women began to add chair bottoms made of birch bark ornamented with dyed porcupine quills to their wares.  In 1851, the Nova Scotia Industrial Exhibition offered a prize for “the best quill work chair bottoms.”

Solitary chair seats were produced for years prior to the production of matching sets of chair seats and chair backs, which helps us date our lone chair seat to the earlier production timeframe of the mid-1800s.  Single quilled chair bottoms sold for $2-$5 to homeowners and merchants, as well as directly to the cabinetmakers who mounted them on hand-crafted chairs.

The chairs into which quilled panels were inserted were fashioned in styles popular among Europeans of the time.  Several years ago, we sold a formal hall chair that had both a quilled back and a quilled seat to an American museum.  That chair (pictured below), had been purchased by James Du Pres, third Earl of Caledon, on a trip to Nova Scotia during the 1800s – an example of the vibrant trade that existed between Micmacs and enthusiastic British collectors.

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In our business, rustic is a style of design, craftsmanship and décor.  When used to describe desirable antiques, the word “rustic” in our vocabulary can just as easily be interchanged with “refined” – at least in reference to a furniture maker’s or an antiques owner’s aesthetic sensibilities.  Yet in everyday parlance, rustic also describes something more primitive, whether living conditions or artifacts, which can have their own very tangible appeal.

More in the spirit of the latter than the former meaning of rustic, we recently spent a few days at a remote lodge in Maine where rustic would be an appropriate adjective to refer to a simple – some might call it rugged – lifestyle without electricity, running water, roads or motorized vehicles.

Katahdin Lake Wilderness Camps (KLWC) was established in 1885, and the main lodge and some of the guest cabins date from that time period. While our last article titled “Rusticator Repast” featured a style of late 19th century rusticating in the lap of luxury, camps such as KLWC would have catered to rusticators more interested in hunting and fishing than in dressing for dinner.  This photograph (from our inventory) of a city couple with their hunting guide is the type of scene we imagine unfolding in a place such as KLWC in its early days.

Katahdin Lake and its surrounding land are now within Maine’s Baxter State Park, and can be accessed via a 3.3 mile hiking trail.

Emerging into a grassy clearing after a mesmerizing hike through mossy woods is unexpected, as are the sights of cabins, garden phlox and apple trees.

While we thoroughly enjoy visiting grand old Adirondack camps and sophisticated contemporary rustic abodes, the old, unadorned cabins at KLWC also have their charms.  In fact, thinking of these structures as primitive is relative to your point of reference – simply having four snug log walls, a roof, beds, and a wood stove are downright luxurious after a few nights of camping in tents or lean-tos.

The cabin interiors have simple quilts on the beds and miscellaneous old furniture around the woodstove.

There are lots of camps and cabins like this throughout Maine (and undoubtedly throughout the country), whether hunting and fishing cabins or family camps.  A number of years ago at a Maine camp where we spent a week, Jeff was surprised that almost everything, especially the things that would be easy and inexpensive to replace, was broken or downright shabby – an ornery crank can opener with the rubber coating peeled off the handles, dated lamp shades sporting old light bulb scorch marks, a footstool with electrical tape repairing a tear in its naugahyde upholstery.  But it all seemed quite normal to Kass who grew up in northern Maine where most folks had some kind of a camp on the water or in the woods.  When something in your town house had seen better days, it went into reserve to take “up to camp,” “over to camp,” or “out to camp” depending on the compass direction from home to camp.

But indoor décor was far from our minds at Katahdin Lake, where a visit is all about reveling in outdoor beauty.  This beach is just a hop down from the cabins, where we took in our first view of the mountain range that rims the lake.

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Although antique Indian snow shoes make appealing wall art on a purely aesthetic basis, they also embody history and cultural identity, a combination intrinsic to all good antique Native American art.  Since tribes across the northern expanse of North America made and used different styles of snow shoes, there exists a wide variety of shapes, sizes, materials and forms of decoration.

Having handled pairs of snow shoes from many areas, we are usually able to readily identify their region of origin.  When in doubt, we consult the few references that anthropologists have written specifically about traditional snow shoes, and read collection histories on pairs of snow shoes in museum collections.

This pair (above) in our current inventory is an excellent example of Eastern Cree snow shoes.  A photo (below) in the publication “Central Cree and Ojibway Crafts # 8 – Transportation” (Indian and Northern Affairs, Ottawa, Canada, 1974) shows a pair having the identical shape and similar decoration that was made by an Eastern Cree tribe member in Eastmain, Quebec, a township on the eastern shore of James Bay that is about an 18-hour drive northwest of Montreal.  These snow shoes, which are in the National Museum of Man in Ottawa, were made for a child seven to ten years of age, so are only 36” long x 8.5” wide.

In contrast, the snow shoes we have are a whopping 58” high x 13” wide so would have been made for an adult, but still are quite a bit larger than average adult snow shoes that we’ve seen from other regions.  They date from circa 1900-1920, and their condition is very good with a few areas where the webbing has broken away from the frame.

They have a two-piece construction, with the birch frame halves sewn together at the front end and held together with metal fasteners at the back end.  The toes are pointed and steam bent in an upturned fashion, and the babiche webbing is moose or caribou hide.

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From the mid-1800s through the 1920s, it became popular for well-to-do urbanites to vacation in remote locations of extraordinary natural beauty across the U.S.  Often dubbed “rusticators,” these tourists sought bucolic settings and opportunities for outdoor recreation, yet preferred comfortable, even luxurious, accommodations to retreat to at the end of the day.

While some establishments, such as the Old Faithful Inn, exhibited classic rustic architecture, many of the destinations were grand Victorian hotels.  Nevertheless, this style of vacationing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries led to the popularity of the rustic furnishings that are at the heart of our antiques business, so all manner of historical details related to the original rusticator era are of ongoing interest.

One dimension of elegant adventurers’ vacation experience was the food served in the out-of-the-way locales they visited.  Could they expect simple local fare such as venison, beans and flapjacks, or upscale entrees such as Blue Points on Half Shell and Filet de Boeuf Pique aux Champignons?

The answer seems to be the latter, based on our exploration of the New York Public Library’s “What’s on the Menu?” database.  Within its treasure trove of digitized restaurant menus from the 1850s thru 2008, we found numerous dinner menus from resorts that were popular during the heyday of country and wilderness vacationing at resorts that had both natural outdoor wonders and the amenities of home.

Here we present menus from five of these resorts, along with period photos of each:

1)    Kearsarge House in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, with a menu from 1873

2)    Paul Smith’s Hotel in the Adirondacks, with a menu from 1891

3)    Poland Spring House in Maine, with a menu from 1891

4)    Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park, with a menu from 1915, and

5)    The Balsams in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, with a menu from 1917.

It is striking how bountiful the fare was in most of these examples, with a wide variety of meats, fish, relishes, vegetables, pastries and the like.  We learned that top chefs in the resort industry prepared meals not unlike what visitors would experience at a fine restaurant back in the city.

Two things made this bounty possible in an era prior to paved highways:  railroads and on-site farms.  The White Mountains Express, Portland & Ogdensburg Railroad, Maine Central Railway, Adirondack & St. Lawrence Railroad, and Northern Pacific Railroad are some of the early rail lines that would have served these resorts.

The train depot was not far from the Poland Spring House in Maine, but in the White Mountains the station was 60 miles from The Balsams, so everything and everyone disembarking the train made the rest of the journey via stagecoach.  This may have inspired The Balsams to establish a huge farming operation on site to produce its own dairy, eggs, poultry, vegetables, livestock, and even trout from its own hatchery.  To augment its self-sufficiency, The Balsams also had (and in fact still has) its own power generator and water supply.

The Kearsarge House, also in the White Mountains, had its own farm as well, boasting in its 1887 brochure: “Possessing its own farm of almost 100 acres, the Kearsarge has every day fresh vegetables and fruit.  The excellence of its table has always been a source of special pride.”  Modern day locavores would approve.

The exception to the more sumptuous resort fare, at least as represented by the sample 1915 menu we found, was at Old Faithful Inn which had a much simpler table d’hote menu presenting a single multi-course meal with few choices.  The rail station for Yellowstone was 56 miles away in Gardiner, Montana, so guests and provisions alike were transported from the train depot to the Inn in 4 and 6-horse wagons.  Without a large farm on site or nearby, it is no surprise that the menu was somewhat limited in this wilderness outpost.

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One of the more intriguing artifacts of northern Native Americans sports and game culture is a long wooden rod called a snow snake.  It is the only implement needed for the game of snow snakes, which has been played by Native men and boys for hundreds of years, and is still played in winter tournaments on some reservations.  Snow snakes are also beautiful sculptural objects – an 8’ long snow snake over a double door in our house always catches the eye of first-time visitors who also love to hold it and imagine how its smooth surface glides across the snow.

The techniques and rules of the game of snow snakes varied among tribes stretching across the vast regions of the country where there are snowy, frozen winters.  The shape of snow snakes also varied by region, with some being short and broad, while others, like the Iroquoian snakes we present here, being long and narrow.  (See Games of the North American Indians by Stewart Culin, a 1993 University of Nebraska Press reprint of an ethnographic tome originally published in 1907.)

The object of the game is for players to see how far they can slide a snake across the snow, usually within a trough that has been built up and then grooved by dragging a log along its length. Players stand back then take several steps towards the beginning of the track – similar to a javelin thrower – while trying to maintain balance on slippery ground. They then throw or toss the snow snake into the track with an underhand motion (although Penobscots used an overhand toss when the snow was soft).  The challenge is to power the snake to slide a long distance without using so much force that it jumps the track and gets buried in the sidelines.

Experienced elders have attested to the difficulty of playing the game well, saying that the most successful players are those who began throwing as children. Recently, snakes thrown by the most skillful players have been recorded as traveling more than one mile in less than three minutes, at speeds clocked at 108 miles per hour in the first mile.

Teams of men play the game using the same track, and in some versions will stand their snake upright into the snow after a throw to mark the farthest point it reached. After a winner of each throw is declared, boys are sent to retrieve the snakes.  There are many variations of the methods and rules of the game (e.g., the number of men per team, how points are accumulated, and how many points constitute a win for a team), as well as variations in track design (e.g., tapering wall height, moguls, and drifts of powdered snow that the snake has to break through).

Some ceremonial aspects of the game have been documented as well.  In the 1940 book Penobscot Man, the anthropologist Frank Speck recounts chants and songs that Penobscots used to accompany a throw, with lyrics such as “Go quickly, my little snow snake, and catch the old woman (or the name of the opponent’s leading stick),” and incantations to the totem inscribed on one’s own snow snake such as:  “Frog, rush ahead and kill them.”

Just as with any piece of sports equipment, a snow snake is designed to maximize the chance of accomplishing the game’s objective.  An Iroquois snow snake is a long piece of wood – 6’ to 8’ – which typically started as a 1” block riven along the grain of a hardwood log such as maple, hickory or birch, and then carved and shaped into the form of an elongated snake with a slightly bulbous tip. The back end of the stick has a notch where the guiding index finger is placed during a throw, and the tip usually has an inlay of pewter.

The snakes are sanded and polished, sometimes decorated, and then coated with wax (or “medicine” as one Seneca snow snake maker calls it), the composition of which varies depending on snow conditions, and which is often made from secret recipes that are passed down through families.

The two snow snakes we are offering were acquired on the Cattaraugus Seneca Indian reservation and are signed by their owners.  The writing on the snakes is comprised of stippled dots incised with a sharp implement.  One snake is signed “Kelly Lay,” a Seneca Indian who lived at Cattaraugus from 1877-1940.

The 1940 U.S. Census shows that he was the head of a household that included eight other people – his wife, five children, and two extended family members.  His snake is dated 1900 when he would have been 23 years old.  It also says “Newtown” which is a community within the reservation.

This snow snake also has two old repairs, a groove on the underside of the head that is colored with red pigment, and a pronounced notch on the back tip.

The second snow snake bears the name “Boston Jim,” which is also written in stippled lettering.

This was presumably the nickname of a Seneca man who had moved to or came from Boston, NY, a community that is less than 30 miles northeast of the Cattaraugus reserve.  This snake has some additional decoration – three red pigment dots and some line drawings, which might represent the owner’s totem or some other good luck spirit.

It also looks as though it was notched on the back tip, but the notch is smoothed somewhat with wear.

Both snow snakes have protective pewter tips and bulbous heads.  A Chippewa man describing playing snow snakes as a child in 1928 explained that the thin tail end of the snake cut into the snow, ensuring that the broad leading head stayed on top. “Even if you goofed and threw it under the snow, it would crawl back up to the top,” he said.

Boston Jim’s snow snake is slightly wider, longer (79”) and heavier than Kelly Lay’s (76.5”) snow snake.  These subtle differences were most likely just the arbitrary result of two different carvers’ shaping techniques, although one contemporary snow snake maker on the Cattaraugus reserve purposely carves different types of snakes for different conditions, with an ice stick being the heaviest, sticks for old or frozen snow being lighter, and those for fresh snow conditions being the most delicate.

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At this time of year we sometimes get feedback from customers who have settled into their summer homes and are living for the first time with things they purchased from us earlier in the year.  Happily, the comments are often sprinkled with the word “love,” which turns our musings this month towards exploring what it means to love an inanimate object such as a piece of furniture, and what elements go into stirring such strong positive emotion.

In his book Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things (New York:  Basic Books, 2004), Donald Norman, a computer and psychology professor who is also a consultant on designing human-centered products, analyzes what’s behind people’s emotional reactions to  viewing and using common objects such as tea kettles, wristwatches, and laptop computers.  He is mostly concerned with our reactions to utilitarian objects rather than to artistic creations such as paintings or photographs which more directly represent and invoke the human experience and related emotions.

Norman proposes three different levels of the brain at which an everyday object can evoke emotion.  The first level is Visceral – the immediacy of how something looks or feels, the symmetry of its lines and its aesthetic congruity.  Whether the physical appearance of an object strikes a person as pleasing or ugly will generate a corresponding emotional response.

The second level of the interaction between objects and emotions is Behavioral.  How well a gadget functions and whether it is pleasurable to interact with as we carry out a task can generate positive or negative emotions.  An interesting finding is that when we have a positive aesthetic response to something such as a technological device, it also becomes easier to use at the behavioral level. This is because positive emotions can actually sharpen our cognitive problem solving processes.

Appearance and function of an object are the two basic levels that designers need to get right – a product usually has to look good and work well to become popular.  Take an Old Hickory Morris chair, for example.

With its high back, multiple spindles, organic weave, and bark-on hickory frame it creates a composition that is a pleasure to look at, so is a success at the visceral level.   It also scores high points at the functional/behavioral level, with a wide seat, a back that adjusts to different angles, and a footstool for ergonomic comfort.

While someone could readily love a Morris chair for its aesthetic appeal or its performance, there is a third, more subtle, but deeper route by which an object becomes entwined with our emotions.  This is the Reflective level, which is the most complex means by which we establish a relationship with material possessions, and also the most difficult for designers to control.  This level relates to each individual’s uniquely personal response to an object stemming from how it connects to his or her memories, knowledge, learning, background, and culture.

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Although we all use the term “tourist” regularly, whether referring to ourselves on holiday or to hordes of vacationers invading our home towns, it is not so common to see signs on modern roadside establishments beckoning specifically to tourists.  In contrast, during the 1920s through the 1940s, beginning just after automobiles became ubiquitous among middle class families and highways were being established and improved, the word “tourist” was used to lure burgeoning road traffic into lodging establishments, gift shops, restaurants and dubious roadside attractions all across the country.

It is not surprising then, that most of the vintage tourists signs we acquire date from the 1920s-1940s.  The framed tourist sign that we have for sale (shown below) was made in the 1920s and came from the Catskills region of New York.  It was most likely attached to the top of another sign, as the legs are long enough to hold it aloft, but are not long (or rotted) enough to indicate that they were posted in the ground.

This vintage photo taken in Louisiana shows the technique of layering signs to create the special effect of a place that gives you a lot for your time and money, making it irresistible for a traveler to pass by.

Since running water, hot water, bathrooms, showers, heat and electricity could not to be taken for granted by tourists, these modern amenities merited special emphasis on road signs, whether layered as multiple signs, or painted all on the same sign.

While a lot of vintage tourist signs are simply painted in black and white, the one we are offering has multiple colors – green, ochre, red and black – which is not so common.

The shadowed letters, arched word presentation, and flourish beneath the center indicate that this might have been created by a professional sign painter, although there is no signature.

This sign is also double-sided and was definitely used outdoors, with the side that was presumably more exposed to harsh prevailing winds and driving rain being more weathered.

A double-sided sign such as this would have been erected perpendicular to the road so that tourists could see it as they approached from either direction, as illustrated in front of Mrs. Parkinson’s tidy establishment:

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Summer colonies exist all across the country, usually situated on a fabulous tract of land near a lake, mountain or seaside. Unlike a resort community (Lake Tahoe, Jackson Hole, Myrtle Beach) that is a regular municipality whose natural assets are available to tourists and local residents alike, a summer colony is much smaller, and occupied primarily by its owners and their guests. Usually some lands or resources are held in common and some form of a property owners’ association provides common governance and services.

We recently had an opportunity to visit an historic summer colony in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, which is not far from our gallery. Called Sprucewold, this colony is of particular interest because it was founded nearly 100 years ago as a rustic summer colony, an identity it still maintains.* The visit also unexpectedly helped us link something in Sprucewold’s past to something in our own present.

Sprucewold’s origins go back to 1888 when a local land development company acquired land on thickly forested Spruce Point on Linekin Bay in the Gulf of Maine, and drew up the following plan for dividing it into individual lots.

But the land was not actually developed until a series of further land acquisitions, transfers, partnerships and mergers led local businessmen to begin building on their holdings in 1912.  Water, electricity and road improvements were introduced in the early 1920s, and by 1922 some of the original developers began renting cabins. A lodge was built in 1925-26 and announced to potential guests that it offered “all the pleasures of primitive living with none of the penalties.”

Most of the people who visited and eventually bought or built cabins at Sprucewold were from cities and suburbs south of Maine – Philadelphia, New York, Boston and the like – taking trains, boats and ferries to get to the peninsula before cars were common.

Men would make the long journey on weekends while their wives and children stayed in residence for the summer.  By 1930 there were 60 cabins plus the lodge, all united by private roads, paths and ocean frontage.  After a period of decline during the Great Depression, building picked up again to complete the log cabin community in the following decades.

Some of the original cabins dating from 1920s and 1930s are basic pioneer-like structures, built from the spruce, pine and hemlock harvested on the property.  Others have more Adirondack-style embellishments with geometric peeled pole log railings and trim.

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During the height of garden preparations here in the Northeast, we are thinking about rustic garden structures.  Only once have we had large antique rustic twig garden ornaments for sale.  It was a pair of 8’ high twig obelisks that we assumed had lived inside a conservatory, as they were still intact at 80 or more years of age.  We took them to a show a few days after finding them, and they sold during set-up to a patron of the show who was given early preview privileges.  We didn’t even have a chance to take pictures of them before they sold, but they were similar to these gate posts made by the Dixie Wood Company, circa 1920:

We agreed to deliver them to the buyer’s home before the show started.  Having heard about her legendary gardens, we expected to see the seventy-something year old lady wearing kid gloves, assiduously tending her rose bushes.  Much to our surprise what we saw instead was a legion of garden workers, including a full-time head gardener with a half-dozen minions. The gardens were gorgeous, but the experience helped to put into perspective what it takes to construct and maintain such beautiful private gardens – a good reality check as we design and labor in our own home gardens.  The obelisks fit in exactly where she had envisioned placing them, so it was a pleasure to leave them behind in such a glorious place.

It is not surprising that old twig garden structures do not often appear on the market – either they were permanently installed and too big to relocate, or more likely, have rotted away.  Yet decorative rustic garden structures have been ubiquitous for over a century.  These two circa 1875-1880 tintypes (jcosmasvintage.tumblr.com) reflect their popularity, as photographers used them as props to add a bit of rustic allure to studio portraits.

A few decades after these images were taken, hickory furniture companies started to manufacture rustic garden structures along with rustic furniture. The 1914 Old Hickory Chair Company catalog advertised a variety of forms including bridges, fences, gazebos and pergolas, as seen in these pages:

Rustic Hickory Furniture Company of LaPorte, Indiana also sold garden structures, such as this covered lawn seat and tea house from their 1926 catalog:

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Illustrations of well-dressed ladies enjoying genteel sports, such as this lithograph on linen, accompanied a rise in popularity of sports participation among women during the final third of the 19th century.  After the Civil War elite women in the U.S., who had more time and energy for leisure pursuits than working-class women, began to participate more actively in croquet, archery, and tennis.

In the 1880s and 1890s upper-class women increasingly explored other physical sports such as horseback riding, bowling, rowing, canoeing, yachting, and skating.  Towards the end of the century, as the growing demand for female emancipation was leading up to the acquisition of voting rights for women, even bicycling and golf became possible pursuits for women.  (For additional historical details see “Women, sport and exercise in the 19th century” by Patricia Vertinsky in Women & Sport – Interdisciplinary Perspectives edited by D. M. Costa  & S. Guthrie, 1994).

This lithograph captures the spirit of the sporting woman at the turn of the 20^th century.  She resembles a “Gibson Girl,” a stereotyped look popularized by the magazine illustrator Charles Dana Gibson from 1890 through about 1910.  Like the woman in this lithograph, Gibson Girls were always impeccably dressed, attractive, confident, and somewhat athletic (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibson_Girl).  Similarly, this woman with her hair piled high, an hour-glass figure and fashionable clothing, projects enough confidence to steer her own boat, while still conveying appropriate social respectability.

We framed this print in a circa 1900 gold bead lined oak frame (~ 27” square) befitting its time period.

We have had several similar woman sporting pillow covers over the years which were likewise kept in storage or framed and never made into pillows.  The following examples help put into context the one in our current inventory for anyone considering starting a collection or simply interested in knowing more about this genre.

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