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Little Known Facts About Paper Quilling
(1) Paper Quilling in General
- Throughout its long history, Paper Quilling has also been known by many other names like paper filigree, fillagree or filigrana, rolled paperwork, paper rollwork, paper scroll, paper lace, paper mosaic and mosaicon.
- The term "Rolled Paper(work)" is more commonly used in the United Kingdom even till this day, while "Paper Quilling" is more popularly used in the United States.
- In order to avoid confusion and ambiguity, the term "Paper Quilling" is a more accurate and preferred one than just "quilling" because the Native American craft of bead work is also known as "quilling".
- Many of the techniques that modern quillers use today are original but most of them are really based on old ideas seen on antique pieces.
- Feather quills, hat pins and corsage pins were used as Paper Quilling tools for rolling paper strips centuries back.
- The standard width of a paper strip used in Paper Quilling is three millimetres (approximately one-eighth inch), a tradition that is still maintained by quillers today.
- Quillers had to cut their paper strips by hand initially but by the eighteenth century, pre-cut paper strips were already made available for purchase through stationers and printers.
- Antique quillworks tend to be more three-dimensional, employing the use of more conical shapes and other projecting parts, and are also heavily decorated, with every inch of space fully covered in tiny coils and shapes.
- Past quillers were fond of working such materials as flaked shells, chipped mica and crushed coloured glass in the background of their quillworks.
- Many quillworks do not just purely use Paper Quilling in their designs; they also combine with other crafts such as paper pricking, paper stitching and paper sculpture.
(2) Influence of Paper Quilling During Its Popularity
- Paper Quilling became so popular in the eighteenth century England that Roman Catholic boarding schools even offered courses in the craft, a subject that the nuns said would add to the "refinement of a young lady of wealth and station".
- At its height of popularity, Paper Quilling supported a small industry in England. Shops selling specialist paper products began selling pre-cut paper strips and plain objects intended for decorating with Paper Quilling, often providing relevant instructions and patterns as well. Cabinetmakers who specialized in small, individually-fitted furniture were employed to make such furniture, along with picture frames and mirrors, with fitted recesses for quilled embellishments that would be added later.
- There was a trend for women's magazines and other such periodicals to publish Paper Quilling pattern sheets which were mostly of petals and leaves or swags and festoons.
- Paper Quilling was accepted by the propriety of the times as a "proper pastime" for young ladies-of-leisure to fill the hours between social events.
- Charlotte Brontë (1816 - 1855), English novelist and the eldest of the three famous Brontë Sisters, quilled an octagonal tea caddy for her friend Ellen Nussey, one which is currently at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in West Yorkshire, England.
- Mary Granville Delany (1700 - 1788), English artist popularly known as Mrs Delany who is noted for her botanically accurate paper collage plants, is recorded as having quilled at least several tea caddies in Silhouette: Notes and Dictionary (1938).
- English princess Elizabeth (1770 - 1840), daughter of King George III, decorated a fire screen with Paper Quilling - now at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England - which she gifted her physician, Dr Alexander Fothergill, for curing her of an illness.
- Maria Josepha Holroyd (1771 - 1863), daughter of first Earl of Sheffield and later the first Lady of Stanley of Alderley, quilled "a Box in purple, green and gold for Mama", according to one of her letters to her Aunt Serena.
(4) References to Paper Quilling Made in Literature and Publications
- In his diary dated 14 May 1663, Samuel Pepys (1633 - 1703), an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is now famous for his diary, noted that he "received a baskett from my (his) sister Pall, made by her of paper...".
- In an Edwardian book of household management, an article titled "Floral Mosaicon" made mention of quillworks being purchased by Queen Mary and Queen Alexandra.
- In Sense and Sensibility (1811) by renowned English author Jane Austen, a chapter tells of the heroine Elinor Dashwood offering to roll some papers for her rival-in-love Lucy Steele, who is making a filigree (that is, Paper Quilling) basket for Annamaria, the three-year-old daughter of Sir John and Lady Middleton.
- In one of the short stories, "The Birth-day Present", in The Parent's Assistant (1865 edition) by Anglo-Irish novelist Maria Edgeworth, it is written that "...there was a certain work-basket to be finished, which she (the heroine Rosamond) was making for her cousin Bell, as a present upon her birth-day. The work was at a stand for want of some filigree (that is, Paper Quilling) paper, and as her mother was going out, she asked her to take her with her, that she might buy some. ...".
- The subject on Paper Quilling was also written and published in art magazines and reference books such as The Magazine Antiques, Concise Encyclopaedia of American Antiques (1957) and The Shorter Dictionary of English Furniture (1964), of which, The Magazine Antiques touched on the subject a few times over a span of fifty years between the 1920s to 1970s.
(5) Major Exhibitions of Quillworks
- The first major exhibition of Paper Quilling was held in 1927 in London, England, where two pictures of King Charles I were specially mentioned.
- In 1988, antique quillworks that were mostly of European origin were on exhibition and sale at the Florian Papp Gallery in New York, United States.
- In 2005, the French association, "Trésors de Ferveur", put up an exhibition of more than three hundred pieces of quilled reliquaries from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries in Paris, France.
- Another exhibition was again held by "Trésors de Ferveur" in Cantal, France in 2007 with over two hundred pieces of quilled reliquaries on display this time round.
(6) Antique Quillworks Offered by Auction Houses
- Every now and then, antique quillworks are offered up for bids by auction houses, including well-known names like Christie's and Sotheby's.
- These auctions often take place in the United States and the United Kingdom, the most recent one being held in Ohio, United States in October 2009.
- The antique quillworks in auctions are usually listed as important English and European furniture and fine decorative arts.
- The variety of auctioned antique quillworks ranges from furniture and coats-of-arms to fire screens, urns and the most frequently seen of all, tea caddies.
(7) Antique Quillworks in Museums Around the World
(a) United States of America
Most surviving antique American quillworks mainly from the eighteenth century are sconces, which are shadow box frames attached with candle holders that extend from the bottoms of the frames. Some American museums also have, in their collection, other quillworks like tea caddies and framed pictures that are mostly of English origin.
- Boston, Massachusetts - Museum of Fine Arts
- Brooklyn, New York - Brooklyn Museum
- Chicago, Illinois - Art Institute of Chicago
- New York, New York - Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Williamsburg, Virginia - Colonial Williamsburg
(b) United Kingdom
English museums have a comparatively varied range of existing antique quillworks from the seventeenth to early nineteenth centuries in their collection, including furniture, fire screens, floral and armorial pictures and the most common type of all, tea caddies.
- Bedford - Cecil Higgins Art Gallery
- Bournemouth - Russell Cotes Art Gallery and Museum
- Cambridge - Fitzwilliam Museum
- Cheltenham - Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum
- London - Victoria and Albert Museum
- Port Sunlight - Lady Lever Art Gallery
- York - York Castle Museum
(c) Other Parts of Europe
The collection of antique quillworks in European museums is generally that of religious pictures. These religious pictures, often incorporating religious medallions and some even containing relics, date from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries.
- Innsbruck, Austria - Tiroler Volkskunst Museum
- Genk, Belgium - Provincie Limburg Openluchtmuseum
- Arles, France - Le Musee Arlaten
- Berlin, Germany - Staatliche Museen Lu Berlin
- Munchen, Germany - Bayerisches Nationalmuseum
- Milano, Italy - Civica Raccolta Delle Stampe
- Rome, Italy - Vatican Museums
- Arnhem, Netherlands - Rijksmuseum Voor Volkskunde
- Basel, Spain - Museum fuer Voelkerkunde
References:
• Christy, Betty and Tracy, Doris, Quilling - Paper Art for Everyone, 1974, Chicago Henry Regnery Co
• Rolled, Scrolled, Crimped and Folded: The Lost Art of Filigree Paperwork, 1988, Florian Papp, Inc (catalogue)
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