Samuel Griffin 

 American, about 1809 



{Courtesy of The National Gallery oj Art, M'ashington, 



D.C., from the Collection of American Primitive 



Paintings given by Edgar Jl'illiam and Bernice Chrysler 

 Garbisch.) 



Figure 27. — The floor covering in the parlor depicted 

 in this portrait is a creamy yellow with green and 

 pink motifs, neatly edged with a floral border. The 

 chair and sofa are upholstered in black. The walls 

 are bright green outlined with a floral border of 

 blue, pink, red, and white motifs on a gray back- 

 ground. 



previously cited, is not known. It is clear, however, 

 that Franklin intended the carpet to be edged 

 with a border in accordance with the prevailing 

 mode. The same ingredients for fashionable floors 

 also were available in Philadelphia. Among the 

 English imports offered for sale in the Pennsylvania 

 Packet of November 1, 1773, were "a beautiful piece 

 of floor carpeting, with border suitable." This 

 practice of bordering carpets was still in fashion in 

 1803 when Thomas Sheraton's The Cabinet Dictionary 

 was published in London. In the section on carpets, 

 the author wrote: "to most of the best kind of carpets, 

 there are suitable borders in narrow widths." Direc- 



tions for cutting, measuring, and fitting carpets were 

 also provided by Sheraton in The Cabinet Dictionary. 

 They reveal that the problem of matching carpeting 

 patterns, recognized by the Dublin Society in 1757 

 and noted by Franklin in 1758, was still unsolved 

 approximately half a century later when The 

 Dictionary was published in 1 803. Sheraton's directions 

 were: 



In cutting out carpets, the upholsterers clear the room 

 of all the furniture, and having caused it to be dusted out, 

 they proceed to line out the border with a chalk line, and 

 marking the mitres correctly in the angles of the room, 

 and round the fire-place in particular, as in this part 

 any defects are most noticeable. They then proceed to 

 cut the mitres of the carpet border, beginning at the 

 fire-place, and endeavouring, as correctly as possible, 

 to match the pattern at each mitre: and in order to do 

 this, they must sometimes cut more or less of the border 

 to waste. In this manner they proceed, tacking it 

 down, in a temporary manner, as they go on. They 

 then take a length of the body carpet, and tacking it up 

 to the border at one end, they take the strainer, and draw 

 it to the other, and tack it again, taking care, as they go 

 on, to match the pattern, which sometimes varies in the 

 whole length, for which there is no remedy, but by 

 changing the lengths in such a manner as to bring them 

 tolerably near in matching. Lastly, if the widths do not 

 answer in number, it then becomes necessary to draw 

 them in at that side of the room where it is least seen; 

 and this must be done so as to make the contracted widths 

 match, that there may be nothing offensive in the appear- 

 ance of the whole. That they may not misplace any of 

 the lengths or parts of the border, they take sealing 

 thread, and tack them together, where they think it 

 necessary, in which state they are taken to the shop 

 and completed. 



If a carpet be cut out at home, a plan of the room 

 must be accurately taken on paper, with all the sizes of 

 breaks, door ways, and windows, &c. which must be 

 transferred to some convenient room at home, by a 

 chalk line and square, and then marking off" the border, 

 and proceeding as before described. 



In laying down a carpet, they generally begin with the 

 fire-place first, and having tacked and secured this, they 

 strain here and there, so as to bring it gradually too, till 

 they get the whole strained close round the room. 



That a handsome floor covering could be obtained, 

 despite the problem of matching carpeting patterns, 

 is indicated by the patterned or figured carpet with a 

 border seen, faintly to be sure, in the portrait Samuel 

 Griffin, painted about 1809 (fig. 27). The carpet, 

 extending from wall to wall, was cut to fit around the 

 hearth and then neatly edged with a floral border. 



PAPER 59: FLOOR COVERINGS IN 18TH-CENTURY AMERICA 



57 



