Flights of Fancy

Turkeys, roosters, pheasants, and peafowl are members of the family Phasianidae, prized by humans for thousands of years both as a source of food and for their ornamental plumage.  Some species are noted for elaborate courtship displays in which males strut about, displaying colorful feathers and wattles, sometimes with an expansive spreading of the tail feathers.  Some are game birds and others, like the domestic chicken, are bred for human consumption. 

The chicken descends from the Red Junglefowl (Gallus gallus) native to southeast Asia.  Domesticated by at least 2000 B.C., chickens are now the most populous bird globally, numbering at least four for every human on the planet.  Indian peafowl (Pavo cristatus) were introduced to temples and palaces across the Mediterranean by Phoenician traders about three thousand years ago.  By the 4th century B.C., domesticated peacocks were a common luxury in Greece and Rome, used for decoration and meat among the upper classes.  They were found across Europe by the 14th century A.D.  In the early 1500s, European explorers brought home Wild Turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) from the New World, where the native Anasazi and Aztec peoples had domesticated the birds centuries earlier.  Turkeys quickly supplanted peafowl on European menus, preferable due to their large size and rich taste from a diet of wild nuts.

Varieties of domestic fowl are often paired together in 19th-century coverlets, just as they have been in Western art for centuries.  Peacocks and turkeys appear in centerfield patterns and serve as the personal logos of weavers such as Henry Oberly and Henry Stager.  Roosters are most commonly featured in borders.

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Peacock, Turkey, Rabbits, and Cockerel in a Landscape, 17th c.

David de Koninck (Flemish, ca.  1644–1701)

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Ferdinand Magellan introduced birds-of-paradise to the Western world after his circumnavigation of the globe in 1522 A.D., gifting their feathered skins to the king of Spain.  Magellan acquired the bird skins from indigenous New Guinea hunters, who removed their wings and feet in the preservation process.  This created a fanciful misconception among Europeans that birds-of-paradise had no feet and lived their entire lives in the heavens, only descending to the earth upon death.  The species name of the Greater Bird-of-Paradise (Paradisaea apoda) translates to “footless.”

Bird-of-paradise feathers were collected as a curiosity and fashion accessory by the European aristocracy for centuries.  Their inclusion in artwork such as Rubens’ Adoration of the Magi evokes a sense of elegance, affluence, and the exotic.  They are also a common decorative element in woven coverlet patterns, where their depictions are nearly as varied as the birds are in nature.  Modern taxonomy recognizes approximately forty-five species of birds-of-paradise in at least fifteen distinct genera.

It was not until 1862 that live specimens were brought back to England by British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913).  Wallace conducted eight years of fieldwork in the Malay Archipelago, observing the diverse species of birds-of-paradise in their natural environment.  With no natural predators or competitors, the male birds directed their energy toward the development of ornamental plumage and elaborate mating practices.  Based on his observations, Wallace developed a theory of natural selection simultaneously to but independently from his friend and colleague Charles Darwin, who published On the Origin of Species in 1859.

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Adoration of the Magi (detail), 1629

Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577–1640)

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Until the mid-1800’s, passenger pigeons numbered in the billions, constituting an estimated 25-40% of the North American bird population.  They traveled in huge flocks and formed roosts and nests for breeding in trees that spread across miles.  Their collective weight broke branches and sometimes toppled trees.

In his 1831 Ornithological Biography, American naturalist John James Audubon described a massive migration: “The air was literally filled with Pigeons; the light of noon-day was obscured as by an eclipse; the dung fell in spots, not unlike melting flakes of snow, and the continued buzz of wings had a tendency to lull my senses to repose. ….Before sunset I reached Louisville, distant from Hardensburgh fifty-five miles.  The Pigeons were still passing in undiminished numbers and continued to do so for three days in succession.”

Audubon’s illustration appears to have directly inspired a coverlet border design used by Indiana weaver Matthew Rattray.  Indiana marked the center of the Passenger Pigeon’s migratory range, and a number of enormous roosts formed there during Rattray’s weaving career.  In 1850, it was reported that four men went to hunt a roost near Lafayette, Indiana and returned to town with 598 pigeons. 

The revolutionary speed of travel and shipping on the railroad enabled hunters to take advantage of newspaper reports on the movements of pigeon flocks.  Overhunting made them a rarity by 1900.  The last living individual of the species, Martha the Passenger Pigeon, died in 1914 in the Cincinnati Zoo.  The abrupt extinction of these birds inspired the beginning of the conservation movement to regulate game management and protect endangered species.

The other coverlet has 1852 in the left corner and 1853 in the right.  Did the weaver realize halfway through that he’d forgotten to change the date? Or was it woven over the New Year holiday? 

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“Winter Sports in Northern Louisiana: Shooting Wild Pigeons,” 1875

Bennett Smith (American, 1846–1907)

Published in Illustrated Shooting and Dramatic News (July 3, 1875), p.  332

The eagle has been the national bird of the United States since 1782, chosen as a symbol of pride and strength.  In the words of William Barton, one of the designers of the seal of the United States, “The eagle displayed is the symbol of supreme power and authority, and signifies Congress, and the olive branch and arrows that it holds in its talons are the powers of peace and war.”  A stylized federal eagle, often bearing a banner with the slogan “E Pluribus Unum,” is a popular patriotic motif in coverlets.  Used by weavers in all locations throughout the 19th century, it is particularly ubiquitous in the borders of coverlets produced in New York and New Jersey.

Not all founding fathers shared a positive view of the bald eagle.  According to Benjamin Franklin, “He is a bird of bad moral character; he does not get his living honestly; you may have seen him perched on some dead tree, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labour of the Fishing-Hawk; and when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to his nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him, and takes it from him….Besides, he is a rank coward: the little King Bird, not bigger than a Sparrow, attacks him boldly, and drives him out of the district.  He is, therefore, by no means a proper emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America.”

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“Design for the Great Seal of the United States,” 1782

Charles Thomson (1729–1824)

National Archives and Records Administration

The distelfink is a stylized bird motif in traditional Pennsylvania German folk art that represents happiness, good fortune, and the Pennsylvania German people.  The word is an adaptation of dischdelfink, an archaic German name for the European goldfinch that literally translates to “thistle finch.”

The Pennsylvania Dutch farmer saw the goldfinch birds on the thistle weeds in his field, pulling the down or fuzz from the thistle to line its nest and eating the seed.  Notably, goldfinches usually wait to nest until the thistles are in bloom.  The bird became a recognized symbol of good fortune by eliminating the thistle as a weed in the fields, thus bringing the farmer better luck with his crops and more profit to his pocket.

Ivan E. Hoyt, Hex Signs: Tips, Tools, and Techniques for Learning the Craft (2008)

The distelfink motif became popular between 1740 and 1860 in Pennsylvania German documents known as fraktur.  These elaborate folk art documents typically commemorate important life events such as birth, baptism, and marriage.  They are hand-illuminated in ink and watercolors, combining calligraphic blackletter text with drawings of distelfinks, hearts, and tulips.

Similar combinations of colors and motifs are used by Pennsylvania German weavers in their coverlets. Perhaps the single most popular and recognizable border design — most heavily represented in coverlets from Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Maryland — features a pair of distelfinks around a rosebush.

Friederich Spayer (active ca.  1781–1803)

“Birth and Baptism Certificate for Magdalena Ruth,” 1793

Ursinus College Library Special Collections

Some woven birds can be difficult to identify. John Wildin’s unique coverlet pattern includes tiny squirrels and acorns, small non-descript birds, and a second mystery bird with a large bill and long legs.

Is the long-legged bird meant to be a stork, a spoonbill, or something else?  You decide!

A distaff is a tool designed to hold unspun flax fiber, or occasionally wool, as it is spun into thread on a spindle or spinning wheel.  Fiber is wrapped around the distaff and tied on with a ribbon, which frees the spinner’s hands to handle the fibers and operate the wheel.  The distaff is a traditional symbol of women’s work. 

Distaffs come in different shapes and sizes. Some are hand-held or hung from the wrist, some are free-standing, and others can be mounted on a spinning wheel.

The ”bird-cage” distaff is named for its shape, resembling a small cage on the end of a pole.  Flax fibers are spread out and wrapped around the cage like a cloud of cotton candy.  The spinner draws fibers continuously from the distaff as the wheel adds twist and winds the spun thread onto a bobbin.

The exhibit included three spinning wheels with cage distaffs. Click on the links to view a Scottish Saxony-style spinning wheel with distaff (2017.3.004), a Pennsylvania-built castle wheel with distaff (2017.3.009), and an English upright wheel built by clockmaker Joseph Doughty of York (2017.3.011).

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Spinning, 1881

Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (American, 1844–1916)