Quilt No.363BW - Bruce Wright
Owner:
Bruce Wright
Location:
NSW Riverina
Maker
Maker:
Unknown
Made in
AUSTRALIA NSW
Patterms
Date:
1941 - 1970
Description:
Skin rug made from approximately 50 fox skins. These are hand sewn together in strips approx. 100mm wide across the width of the rug. Backing is of dark brown felt. The edge is trimmed with blue felt with a scalloped edge. Skins were tanned with wattle bark tanning solution.
1550 x 1300mm
History:
Made in Tumbarumba (NSW) in the late 1940s for Dick Wenke, a skin buyer who had it made from selected fox skins. Owned by Colleen and Bruce Wright.
Related Quilts:
Kangaroo skin cloak of seven gores is made from the skins of seven grey kangaroos (Macropus fuliginosus). The skins vary in size and shape, the inner five are roughly triangular. The cloak is edged with a series of loops, through one of these near the collar is a piece of cloth which appears to have tied the cloak together. The skins are sewn together with two sorts of linen or cotton thread. In a small diamond-shaped gusset at the back of the neck there are some stitches of sinew. The skins are sewn together by means of a small hem which was turned back on to the fur, so stitches went through two layers of skin on each gore. There are some small holes in the skins. The skins are very soft and pliable, and greyish in colour; they vary in size and shape.
Longest part: 800mm
Ref: MA Thesis 1973, S.Meagher 'A Reconstruction of the Traditional Life of the Aborigines of the S.W. of Western Australia.
Wallaby skin rug of small rectangles stitched together with sinew. The back of the rug has been scored in diamond patterns.
Kangaroo skin rug backed on to a brown checked fringed rug.
1931 x 1525mm
The rug consists of 95 fox tails (19 down and 5 across) stitched to fox skins which also form a border. The top section is piped with felt. The backing is wool felt scalloped around the edge.
1580 x 1260mm
Rug made from 54 Platypus skins; 6 rows of 9 rectangular pelts, brown with creamy yellow edges, machined together. The backing is red felt or baize and extends beyond the top with a punched scalloped border. The backing is hand stitched to the top and has a centre motif of a flower outlined in black braid within a large black rectangle.
1890 x 1635mm
Possum skin cloak. Possum skins sewn together with vegetable fibre or kangaroo sinew. Designs incised into the skins, some of which are decorated with ochres.
2070 x 1540mm