Sampler: T.42-1938

Maker(s)

Maker: Brooks Mary

Entities

• Sampler
• Category: bordered sampler

Categories

• Embroidery

Description

Bordered sampler worked in polychrome silks and edged with a pink ribbon. The sampler depicts an inscription which is a transcription of Song 20 from Dr Isaac Watts' 'Divine and Moral Songs for Children', a pastoral scene and a strawberry border.

Woollen sampler embroidered with polychrome silks in cross, satin and stem stitch. The edges are bound with pink ribbon, the whole sampler is backed with cotton sateen which is all of later date. A conventional strawberry border frames free-style embroidery with the pictorial element worked in a needle painting technique. The pictorial pattern includes ribboned baskets, delicate rosebuds, a beehive and a pastoral scene of a male and female figure flanked by trees. The inscription within a wreath reads ' Mary brooks/Finish'd this Sampler/in the Year 1792.' The verse inscription is a transcription of Song 20 from Dr Isaac Watts' 'Divine and Moral Songs for Children'. The song however is not correctly arranged on the sampler and reads as follows:' How doth the little busy bee improve each Shining hour, And gather honey all the day From every open flower: How skilfully She builds her cell. How neat She Spreads the wax; And labours hard to store it well, With the Sweet food she makes. In works of labour or of skill I would be busy too; For Satan finds Some mischief still for idle hands to do. in books or work, or healthful play, Let my first years be past, that I may give every day, Some good account at last.'.

Legal notes

Bequeathed by Mrs H.A. Longman

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed by Longman, H. A., Mrs

Dating

18th Century, Late
Production date: AD 1792

Note

The use of paper figures with painted features, applied to the ground fabric by some of the stitches that are used to create the effect of costume, was also a contemporary practice. Prepared and painted figures were widely available and used in many embroidered pictures and small furnishing items such as screens.