A hooked rug with a central floral oval medallion with a scrolled border and flowers in each corner. Hooked with narrow strips of wool on a stamped burlap pattern manufactured by E.S. Frost & Co. ca. 1870. Edward Sands Frost was a tin peddler who created zinc stencils to transfer a design for a rug onto a piece of burlap. Eventually he stopped peddling and began his own rug pattern business and developed a method for printing patterns in colors. Ill health forced him to sell his business in 1876, but by that time he had approximately 180 different patterns for rugs, using over 750 zinc plates.
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