John Phillips 



by Joseph Steward, 1793 



{Courtesy of Dartmouth College, photo 



courtesy of The Art Institute oj Chicago.) 



Figure 1 1 . — Floral-patterned surfaces 

 characterize the wall-to-wall floor 

 coverings of these two rooms. They 

 are in shades of russet, olive-green, 

 and yellow. 



were of marble. Neither were they of wood nor of 

 "small stones, like the red tiles for size and shape," 

 the two other types of flooring which Mrs. Adams 

 makes note of in the letters. In all probability, the 

 tiles were some type of ceramic material and their 

 shape, which had prompted the comparison with 

 Mrs. Quincy's floorcloth, may have been hexagonal, 

 square, or diam.oiad. Whatever the material and 

 appearance of the floors, it is interesting to note 'the 

 unique method of cleaning them described by Mrs. 

 Adams. In the letters to her sister and niece cited 

 above, she explained that the floors were waxed and 

 "then a man-servant with foot brushes [i.e., brushes 

 upon which he set his feet] drives round your room 

 dancing here and there like a Merry Andrew. This 

 is calculated to take from your foot every atom of dirt, 

 and leave the room in a few moments as he found it." 

 Mrs. Adams also wrote that this man who "with his 

 ariTis akimbo . . . goes driving round your room 



... is called a frotteur, and is a servant kept on 

 purpose for the business." 



Carpeting, too, was imitated, as the reference to a 

 floorcloth painted in the Turkey fashion, already 

 cited, indicates. Wilton carpeting was another type 

 of pile floor covering copied on canvas carpets, 

 because "Wilton or Marble Cloths" for floors were 

 advertised in the Boston Gazette of January 26, 1761. 

 Since the resiliency, warmth, and sotmd absorption 

 inherent in pile carpets could not be reproduced in 

 a floorcloth, it is unlikely that Turkey or Wilton 

 floorcloths were ever intended to deceive the eye 

 and foot, as was most surely the case with "Marble 

 Cloths." Instead, floorcloths were presumably so 

 designated because the designs painted on them 

 resembled those of the pile carpets. It is uncertain 

 whether the floor covering seen in the portrait 

 Chief Justice and Mrs. Oliver Ellsworth (fig. 1), painted 

 in 1 792 by Ralph Earl, was a woven or embroidered 



PAPER 59: FLOOR COVERINGS IN 18TH-CENTURY AMERICA 



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