George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, and his Wife and Family 



by John Smibert, 1729 



{Courtesy of the National Gallery oj Ireland.) 



Figure 10. — The table covered with a Turkey carpet seen in this group portrait — a record of an 

 Enghsh family's sojourn in Newport, Rhode Island — suggests that such usage was both 

 appropriate and fashionable in this period. 



the house she and lier ambassador husband were 

 renting at Auteuil, near Paris, wrote to her sister in 

 Massachusetts on September 5, 1784, that there was 

 not "a carpet belonging to the house. The floors I 

 abhor, made of red tiles in the shape of Mrs. Quincy's 

 floorcloth tiles." '' On the same day in a letter to 



^2 Letter from Mrs. Abigail .Adams, Auteuil, France, to Mrs. 

 Mary Cranch, Braintree, Mass., Sept. 5, 1784. In The Letters 

 of Mrs. Adams, The IVi/e of John Adams, edit. Charles Francis 

 Adams (4th ed.; Boston: Wilkins, Carter, and Co., 1848), 

 p. 189. 



her niece, Mrs. Adams again explained that the room 

 in which she was writing "wants only the addition of a 

 carpet to give it all an air of elegance; but in lieu of 

 this is a tile floor in the shape of Mrs. Quincy's 

 carpet."'* Since the tile floors would "by no means 

 bear water" but had to be dusted and waxed, and 

 repainted when defaced, it seems unlikely that they 



'* Letter from Mrs. Abigail Adams, Auteuil, France, to Miss 

 Elizabeth Cranch, Braintree, Mass., Sept. 5, 1784. Ibid., 

 pp. 194-95. 



18 



BULLETIN 250 : CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



