In 1839, at the age of sixty-nine, the Philadelphia Quaker Rebecca Scattergood Savery made this sunburst-patterned quilt for her granddaughter Sarah Savery, who was born that year; their descendants donated the quilt to the Museum. Measuring nine feet by nearly ten feet, the quilt contains almost four thousand diamond-shaped pieces, each about four inches long, that were first basted to a paper template to ensure uniformity of size before being meticulously whip-stitched together. At least thirty-four different small-patterned, roller-printed cottons were used to form the octagonal rings that radiate from a central eight-pointed star to create a striking dark and light design. The quilting, which was stitched in a diamond pattern over very thin batting, was done by more than one hand, probably at a quilting bee where the work was combined with socializing. This quilt is the most important patchwork piece in the Museum's large quilt collection, which is especially rich in examples from the Philadelphia area. H. Kristina Haugland, from Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections (1995), p. 91.