Unusual patchwork

A unique exhibit in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum.

In 1856, seventeen-year-old Adeline Harris, daughter of a wealthy mill owner in Rhode Island, conceived a unique design for the bedspread. She sent small diamond-shaped pieces of white silk all over the world to people she considered the most important figures of her time and asked everyone to sign the silk and return it to her. Adeline has collected an amazing collection of autographs. There are eight American presidents' signatures on her bedspread. Luminaries from the world of science, religion and education; Civil War heroes sent her autographs, such as Charles Dickens and Ralph Waldo Emerson; and many outstanding artists.
Today, autographs on this beautiful and impeccably crafted blanket give us a glimpse of how an educated young woman of the mid-19th century viewed her world.
The size of the duvet is 195.6 x 203.2 cm.
Details can be viewed here
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Quilt%2C_Tumbling_Blocks_with_Signatures_pattern_MET_DT3962.jpg