Needlework Samplers
Martin McIlroy, Head of the Works of Art Department, looks at the development of
needlework samplers through the 19th Century by looking at four such needlework
samplers coming up for auction in our Spring 2016 Fine Sale in April 2016.
An 1815 Needlework Sampler produced at the time of the Battle of Waterloo.
Coming up in our two day
Spring 2016 Fine Art Auction
(which is being held on the 19th/20th April 2016) are four 19th century
needlework samplers, nothing
unusual about that but it is interesting to compare these four samplers, which were
all produced within twenty five years of each other.
The earliest sampler dates from the year Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo
in 1815 and displays many of the traditional characteristics you would expect to
find. The banded designs of letters and numbers that hark back to a time when samplers
were also used as educational tools. There are figures, trees, monarch's crowns
and flowers which keep pretty much to the traditional designs. However, the enclosing
of the central verse around a border of trailing foliage and flowers is unusual,
as this border is much freer flowing in its stitchwork than that of the more geometric
strawberry border that surrounds the entire sampler.
An 1831 Needlework Sampler.
The next sampler was produced sixteen years later and there appears to be a greater
emphasis on religious instruction than before. Gone is the alphabet, gone are the
numerals and Arabic numbers; in comes religious verse, three times in this particular
sampler. The sampler is still roughly divided into bands with the more decorative
panels of birds, house, monarch's crown, flowers and shrubs bisecting the religious
texts. This can be partly explained by the rising child mortality rate and the resulting
resurgence of religion in family lives. The sampler still retains the meandering
strawberry border.
The remarkable stitchwork in the 1839 needlework sampler of eight-year old Clarissa
Dearden shows yet a further transition in 19th Century sampler styles.
Eight years on in 1839, Clarissa Dearden produced the third sampler, which again
is another transitional piece. This was produced when she was just eight years old
and the stitchwork is quite remarkable for its neatness and quality of stitches.
The banding has all but disappeared and we are left with a bold religious verse
in black silk at the top of the sampler. Whilst the verse is not a straight bible
quotation, it does show signs of a morbid sentimentality that would come to
dominate the period. The house still remains with grazing sheep in the park and
a gatehouse, together with some flowering shrubs and animals and again enclosed
in a flowering meandering border.
The sampler produced by Mary Harvey in 1839 shows further evolution in needlework
samplers of 19th Century.
The final sampler produced one year later by Mary Harvey, who may have had a much
more liberal upbringing. No religious verse this time, just an over sentimental
six line verse on how to be a good child. The decoration is much more patchwork
like with highly detailed cockerels, birds and flowering shrubs and harken back
to when 'samples' were made by seamstresses of motifs and images they wanted to
remember and use at a later date.
The use of numerous different colours to each of these designs suggests that Mary
may well have seen a pattern book or a Berlin woolwork pattern book that were being
circulated at this period. It is probably with the introduction of printed pattern
books that the need for samplers declined and although samplers were continued to
be produced up until the end of the 19th century, their childlike naivety became
lost in a more religious and industrial dominated world.
All four samplers carry pre-sale estimates of between £150 and £250.
- Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood
- Works of Art Auctions
- Needlework Samplers
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