Oscar Crazy Quilts #2: Portraits

This is a true "Oscar Quilt" depicting the long-haired lecturer

in profile.

Oscar's witty lectures advocated sunflowers and embroidered pillows (according to the New York Times in 1882). Americans responded with Oscar quilts featuring sunflowers, calla lilies and embroidery.

Noting the embroidered portrait of Oscar at the top of this post I wondered how many other crazy quilts contain a picture of the aesthete?

Is this Oscar in his knee breeches and patent leather shoes

with a couple of fans? Note the newspaper in his hand.

The detail is from the star quilt below.

I have no idea where I found this tattered crazy,

which reminded me of the quilt below in far better shape

shown in the last post.

No Oscar but plenty of aesthetic items, peacocks

and calla lilies.

When we look at these crazy quilts we tend to think of all males in knee pants as Kate Greenaway's

nostalgic illustrations. The children above probably are related to Greenaway's characters.

But look for this pair of knee breeches and patent leather slippers that

inspired a public relations coup in 1882.

Reading about Oscar Wilde on his American tour (and there is plenty to read) indicates it was a failure, as in this negative article from the Dodge City Kansas Times, calling him a "damphool." The male-centered press carps and carps about low attendance, bad lectures and the irrelevance of his sissy topic, but the evidence in the quilts from the early 1880s might be a better indication of just how successful Oscar Wilde's tour was.