Unfinished Basket

Billie Ruth Sudduth

2001

See More of the Collection

Sunburst in Circles quilt
White background quilt with several cats and a pot of flowers.
Embroidered and painted picture on silk, decorated with beading and tassels, featuring a female figure as Liberty, central to the composition, holding up a cup to the American eagle in her right hand and supporting a staff with her left arm, the staff with an American flag, waving as if in a breeze, the stars picked out in metal, and a Phrygian hat with tassels perched on top, in her left hand Liberty holds a floral garland that extends down to the ground, Liberty wears a gold dress with a tasseled sash around her waist and fringe at the hem, she stands atop a key, likely the "Key of Tyranny," the key to the Bastille which had been sent to George Washington in 1790 by Lafayette, and which is symbolic of the American triumph over monarchy and oppression, and garter, with a banner bearing the motto IN ROY M and a broken candlestick, the background features a painted blue and gray cloudy sky with a domed church on the right and a sea or harbor, along with a rock with flowers and grass in the foreground, a column with a floral garland is immediately behind Liberty.
Silver teapot of bulbous form on a stepped circular foot and with an S-shape spout, engraved on one side of the body with the arms of the Gardiner family, a branch of the Gardiner's Island, NY Gardiners in Boston, the opposite side with the pricked date "1746," which is not contemporary to the piece, the shoulder and hinged lid engraved with Rococo scroll- and lattice work, topped by a wood knop finial with silver pinecone bud, and with loop handle of fruitwood.