To herald the advent of a new and hopefully peaceful year, treat your senses to a luxurious antique silk or velvet quilt from the special collection at Laura Fisher’s FISHER HERITAGE, 305 East 61st Street, 5th Floor in the Hayes Fine Arts Building.

“A jewel tone, intricately pieced antique quilt offers a tactile and visual experience as well as an historic context,” Fisher reports. Thanks to the increasing wealth and urbanity of a growing American middle class in the late 19th century, velvet and silk materials were available to fashion into decorative ‘show’ quilts. Because few quilters today work with these luxury fabrics, our antique examples are sought after for the era’s aesthetic characteristics, including the sumptuousness of the materials, their lustrous depth of color, the Victorian embellishments and yes, especially their sexy allure.”

The traditional ‘crazy’ quilt style - the trend during the Victorian era - is just one type of ‘show’ quilt in Fisher’s collection. Harder to find are the velvets and silks that were pieced in inventive designs, some with a bonus of lavish embroidery, and each now an heirloom to cherish and display.

Costly velvet and silk materials have an international history long associated with wealth and royalty. Velvet, one of the oldest fabrics extant, originated in Kashmir in the 14th century; was marketed to the Middle East; later flourished in Cairo, then migrated to Italy where still today its manufacture exemplifies that country’s great textile tradition. Silk production originated in China thousands of years ago, travelled to Europe with the opening of the Silk Road, and is now produced around the globe.

Most examples in Fisher’s collection date from the late Victorian era.  Of note are:

A  VELVET LAYERED ‘FANS’ VARIATION PIECED QUILT, an optical illusion dazzler immortalized on the cover of American Quilts: the Democratic Art (Robert Shaw, Rizzoli, 2009)

A SILK ‘’CONTAINED CRAZY’ BARN RAISING VARIATION with lavish embroidery

A SILK ‘49 FANS’ with profuse floral embroidery, metallics and lace

A  VELVET ‘ TRIP AROUND THE WORLD’ VARIATION in luminous autumnal colors

A SILK MEDALLION ‘CRAZY QUILT with pieced patterns and floral embroidery

A VELVET ‘DIAMOND LATTICE’ embroidered with white flowers and French knots

A SILK ‘CRAZY STRING STARS’ in postage stamp size pieces with flowers

AN UNUSUAL VELVET ‘CONTAINED CRAZY’ QUILT in deep jewel tone colors

A  SILK ‘ECONOMY PATCH AND ROMAN STRIPE’ in a linear modernist graphic design

A SILK ‘ROCKY ROAD TO KANSAS’ intricate pieced diamonds quilt with red ruffle

And several other classic ‘CRAZY’ QUILTS in silk with diverse formats such as ‘sampler’, some adorned with lace, ruffles, or dextrous embroidery, as well as pieced quilts in sumptuous velvets.

FISHER HERITAGE is open usually Monday-Friday from 11-5, other hours by appointment.

For immediate release December 27

contact Laura at 212.838-2596 (alt. phone 212.866-6033)

email fisherheritage@yahoo.com