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The term Provençal quilting, also known as boutis, refers to the wholecloth
quilts A quilt is a multi-layered textile, traditionally composed of two or more layers of fabric or fiber. Commonly three layers are used with a filler material. These layers traditionally include a woven cloth top, a layer of padding, batting or w ...
done using a stuffing technique traditionally made in the
South of France Southern France, also known as the south of France or colloquially in French as , is a geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Marais Poitevin,Louis Papy, ''Le midi atlantique'', Atlas e ...
from the 17th century onwards. Boutis is a Provençal word meaning 'stuffing', describing how two layers of fabric are quilted together with stuffing sandwiched between sections of the design, creating a raised effect. The three main forms of the Provençal quilt are matelassage, piqûre de Marseilles (also known as Marseilles work or ''piqué marseillais''), and boutis. These terms, along with trapunto are often debated and confused, but they are all forms of stuffed quilting associated with the region.


History (pre-17th century)

Stuffed quilting, or trapunto, was known in Sicily as early as the 13th century.The Tristan Quilt
in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Accessed 5-2-2010
One of the earliest surviving examples of trapunto quilting is the 1360-1400 Tristan Quilt, a Sicilian quilted linen textile surviving as two fragments, representing scenes from the story of ''
Tristan and Isolde Tristan and Iseult, also known as Tristan and Isolde and other names, is a medieval chivalric romance told in numerous variations since the 12th century. Of disputed source, usually assumed to be primarily Celtic, the tale is a tragedy about ...
''; one part of which is housed in the
Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...
and the other in the
Bargello The Bargello, also known as the or ("Palace of the People"), is a former public building and police headquarters, later a prison, in Florence, Italy. Mostly built in the 13th century, since 1865 it has housed the , a national art museum. It ...
in Florence.


Techniques


Matelassage

The first whole-cloth stuffed quilts to be made in the southern region of France were matelassage quilts in the mid-17th century. These sandwiched a layer of wadding, also known as
padding Padding is thin cushioned material sometimes added to clothes. Padding may also be referred to as batting or wadding when used as a layer in lining quilts or as a packaging or stuffing material. When padding is used in clothes, it is often done in ...
, between two outer layers of fabric, which were then quilted together using a
running stitch The straight or running stitch is the basic Stitch (textile arts), stitch in hand-sewing and embroidery, on which all other forms of sewing are based. The stitch is worked by passing the Sewing needle, needle in and out of the textile, fabric ...
. Matelassage quilts were successfully exported from the South of France to
England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
,
Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...
,
Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
,
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
and the
Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
.


Piqûre de Marseilles

Also known as corded quilting, Marseilles work or piqué marseillais, this technique was developed in
Marseille Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...
in the early eighteenth century, and became an important local industry. The two layers of plain fabric are stretched together without wadding, and intricately stitched together using
backstitch Backstitch or back stitch and its variants stem stitch, outline stitch and split stitch are a class of embroidery and sewing stitches in which individual stitches are made backward to the general direction of sewing. In embroidery, these st ...
, or after the mid-18th century, the more swiftly achieved running stitch. There were narrow channels in the embroidered design through which fine cord or rolled fabric was threaded using a special needle to create a three-dimensional effect. In the late 18th century the
Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...
cotton industry developed a mechanised technique of weaving double cloth with an enclosed heavy cording weft. The resulting imitation Marseille quilts became an important industry for Lancashire from the late 18th to the early 20th century. These textiles are also known as marcella, one of a number of variations on the word "Marseille".


Boutis

Boutis quilts, as they are known today evolved in the 19th century from the earlier Provençal quilting techniques. They represent a simplification of the Marseille technique where the motifs in the quilting are larger and the stuffing bulkier. The boutis quilt may feature various images and symbols in its design, such as religious symbols, oak leaves, flowers, fruits and berries, animals, and
cornucopia In classical antiquity, the cornucopia (; ), also called the horn of plenty, was a symbol of abundance and nourishment, commonly a large horn-shaped container overflowing with produce, flowers, or nuts. In Greek, it was called the " horn of ...
; it might also include naive motifs drawn from the maker's personal life. The term "boutis" is now widely used as a general term for all forms of Provençal stuffed quilting, with ''La Maison du Boutis'' (The Boutis House) in Calvisson acting as a museum dedicated to traditional Provençal embroidery & quilting techniques. The special
boxwood ''Buxus'' is a genus of about seventy species in the family Buxaceae. Common names include box and boxwood. The boxes are native to western and southern Europe, southwest, southern and eastern Asia, Africa, Madagascar, northernmost So ...
needle used for stuffing the motifs is also known as a boutis.


Sources


External links


La Maison du Boutis
The Museum of Boutis in Calvisson. (in French) {{DEFAULTSORT:Provencal quilts Embroidery Quilting Textile arts of France