Art of the Quilter

On view in the Foster and Muriel McCarl Gallery

The exhibition is generously funded by the June G. Horsman Family Trust

Four generations of Shaifers from Port Gibson, Mississippi, shared a passion for stitching, producing over 40 surviving quilts dating from the mid-19th century to the 1980s. This unique collection was recently gifted to The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Shown here for the first time, will be 12 quilts highlighting the variety and skills of this family of quilters.

The earliest surviving quilts owned by the Shaifer family were made by Amanda Caroline Guice. She was known as an avid quilter and is represented in the exhibition by her “Nine-Patch” quilt made up of 142 squares, created in the late 1860s.

Shaifer family members across generations were frequent quilting collaborators. Mother and daughter Elizabeth Wheeless Shaifer and Laura Percy Shaifer hand-appliqued and hand-quilted a ‘Butterfly” quilt in the 1930s, while living together in the Shaifer home on Church Street.

This collection was generously gifted to The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation by the children of Elizabeth Shaifer Hollingsworth: Allison Shaifer Hollingsworth Moxey, Ann Davidson Hollingsworth Weeden and Christopher Alton Hollingsworth, and the children of Sanfrid Davidson Shaifer: Mary Laura Shaifer Bell, Jodie Stovall Shaifer Huddleston and Sanfrid Davidson Shaifer, Jr.