EBay, like the rest of the economy, has been suffering from some deflation. It's encouraging (I think!) to see a quilt bid up to astronomical heights. I got a note yesterday that eBay is sorry I didn't win this album quilt for $3,349. I'm not sorry as I like to spend about $60 for a quilt.
It is a great quilt, over 100 inches square, possibly from the 1840s, sold by the eBay quilt dealer French Antiques. It is full of fondue or rainbow prints in the blue and buff color combination produced by Prussian blue dye. These large-scale stripes and plaids were quite popular for women's dresses in the 1840s and '50s. Dyers loved the palette because both shades came from the same dyestuff. The blues could be quite bright shaded to dull and the browns from rich caramel color to a light tan (buff).
In reading 18th-century English history I find there is political meaning as well as fashion sensibility to buff and blue. Those were the colors of the American revolutionary war uniform. The Whig party in England, opposed to King George III, also wore the color combination. The fabulous Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire and her friend Frances Crewe wore buff and blue in electioneering for the Whigs, an activity that caused this cartoon backlash depicting Georgiana as trading kisses for votes. Mrs. Crewe, wearing buff and blue on the left, made a famous toast to the Whig politicians in 1784:"Buff and blue and all of you."
This quilt is fifty years later but the print's palette remained known by the alliterative name of Buff and Blue. So for those who bid on this quilt---a toast: "Buff and blue and all of you."
It is a great quilt, over 100 inches square, possibly from the 1840s, sold by the eBay quilt dealer French Antiques. It is full of fondue or rainbow prints in the blue and buff color combination produced by Prussian blue dye. These large-scale stripes and plaids were quite popular for women's dresses in the 1840s and '50s. Dyers loved the palette because both shades came from the same dyestuff. The blues could be quite bright shaded to dull and the browns from rich caramel color to a light tan (buff).
In reading 18th-century English history I find there is political meaning as well as fashion sensibility to buff and blue. Those were the colors of the American revolutionary war uniform. The Whig party in England, opposed to King George III, also wore the color combination. The fabulous Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire and her friend Frances Crewe wore buff and blue in electioneering for the Whigs, an activity that caused this cartoon backlash depicting Georgiana as trading kisses for votes. Mrs. Crewe, wearing buff and blue on the left, made a famous toast to the Whig politicians in 1784:"Buff and blue and all of you."
This quilt is fifty years later but the print's palette remained known by the alliterative name of Buff and Blue. So for those who bid on this quilt---a toast: "Buff and blue and all of you." 
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