Plate No. 011pattern
Red on Cream
Navy on Cream
Cream on Navy
First documented
mid-1800s
Origin
Central Europe, Germany
Fiber
cotton, silk
Weave
printed
Family
dots

Plate No. 011 · pattern

Polka Dot

The polka dot is a pattern of evenly sized, evenly spaced filled circles, usually set in an offset half-drop grid. It was named during the mid-nineteenth-century craze for the polka dance, when merchants attached the popular word to many goods. Regular machine printing was what finally made the perfectly even dot possible at scale.

Named for

Named after the polka, the dance craze of the mid-nineteenth century. The name comes from the fashion for the dance, not from any feature of the dots.

Sources & References

  1. 1.Polka dot, Wikipedia
  2. 2.polka dot, Wiktionary

Related specimens