The Rajah quilt* 1841, 3.25m x 3.37m pieced medallion style unlined coverlet:
cotton sheeting and chintz appliqué, silk thread embroidery.
means of measuring, including tape houses or merely pretty boxes made from
measures, yardsticks, and lap rules as bone, ivory, woodormetal.
well as meshes and gauges. The French They were often inaccurate as the tape
for a tape measure is ‘un metre a ruban’ – or ribbon would stretch or break with age,
literally a length of ribbon, usually silk, with and the marking intervals might also have
the measures inked in rather than printed. been incorrect. Some tapes examined show
Until the last half of the 19th century, most considerable inconsistency, with intervals
tape measures followed this form. They varying by a quarter to half an inch. The tape
appear in a variety of guises: winding and illustrated shows 1 N as 1 Nail, and the next
unwinding themselves from the cylinders measure of 41/2in is H/Q, or half a quarter,
construed as barrels, castles, bells, light- and not 2 Nails, although other measures
*Gift of Les Hollings and the Australian
Textiles fund 1989. National Gallery of
Australia, Canberra.
