Note from the designer: "German and Dutch samplers are known for their iconography, especially the symbolic religious motifs. This piece, reproduced from the collection of the Allentown Art Museum in Allentown, Pennsylvania, portrays many of these motifs. Adam and Eve, in particular, are often... Read more
Note from the designer: "This intricate and involved sampler features many traditional German sampler motifs dating from the sixteenth century including a large parrot, a peacock with silver tips on its wings, the Lamb of God, as well as a depiction of the Crucifixion flanked by Mother Mary and... Read more
Displaying the traditional color scheme of Scottish samplers, this beautiful and delicately stitched piece also employs a variety of interesting counted thread stitches including queen, doublerunning, four-sided, back, counted satin filling, cross, Algerian eyelet, and cross over one (petit... Read more
This is a very finely stitched classic Scottish sampler featuring three complete rows of beautifully illuminated letters, an arcaded floral band as well as other traditional motifs including peacocks, birds drinking at the fountain of life, feather trees and family initials. A four sided berry... Read more
Note from the designer: "This Scottish sampler is a riot of brilliant color and intricate motifs, from the Scotsman in his kilt playing a traditional dulcimer (which looks like a butter churn) in the upper left, to an elaborate mansion house fronted by a three dimensional turkeywork lawn in the... Read more
Note from the designer: "This small and brilliantly preserved band sampler demonstrates a wide variety of stitches found on many seventeenth century samplers. The beautifully shaded flower heads and leaves are filled in with connecting tiers of trellis stitch."
Note from the designer: "Samplers worked with black backgrounds are unique to New England, and this one is designed after a late 18th century Massachusetts piece. A portly clergyman is depicted strolling between a fashionable lady under a parasol, and a church or meeting -house; with a frisky... Read more
Rose's unusual middle name should have provided some clues about where she was born, and where she lived, but the name "Shenamon" is elusive despite my efforts to discover its origins as well as hers. It is spelled many different ways when researched (including Shinimon and Schinnamon which... Read more
Made in Providence, Rhode Island, this sampler is a superb example of the work done at Miss Mary (Polly) Balch's school, one of the most important female learning institutions in America at that time. Combining sophisticated architectural, landscape and figural motifs with elaborate and unusual... Read more
This is a reproduction of an English sampler made in Bradford, Yorkshire, that shows distinct influences of Scottish needlework traditions, particularly in the illuminated alphabets. The bold primary colors were reproduced from the front of the original sampler, which retains its amazing... Read more
The original sampler, made in England in 1848, was stitched with cross, counted satin, petit point, and eyelet stitches on an extremely fine glazed linen of approximately fifty threads per inch.
It is unusual to find such a meticulously and finely stitched sampler at this late date, when... Read more
This design was excerpted from the top of an early nineteenth-century English sampler. It features an unusual and amusing hunting scene with a solo hunter on horseback pursuing a single hapless stag with a pack of ten spotted hounds on its trail.
The verse reads:
Give me O Lord thy early... Read more
This English sampler comes from the collection of the late Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Jarrett, who established Witney Antiques. It was featured in one of their exhibition catalogs in December 1996 titled "All Creatures Great and Small."
The work is extremely fine and accomplished,... Read more
This mid-eighteenth-century Scottish band sampler features many classic seventeenth-century patterns, executed in cross, eyelet, double running, counted satin, back, and queen stitches.
The virtually unfaded color was reproduced from the front of the sampler. Six pattern bands precede... Read more
This English sampler features a three-sided floral border surrounding thirteen lines of alphabets, neatly cross-stitched in several different lettering styles. Mary Wagstaff was likely born in Huyton, Lancashire in 1809, completing this sampler when she was ten years old. She passed away in... Read more
A sampler from the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England.
Skill and expertise in sampler-making did not necessarily peak in the mid-to-late seventeenth century and then wane during what is often called the "golden age" of English sampler-making. These skills... Read more
This is an expansive English sampler with an unusual four-sided leafy branch and floral border, centering a very busy reserve filled with baskets of fruits and flowers, stylized trees and plants, birds, lions rampant, butterflies, rabbits, and stags. A large building/mansion/institution is at the... Read more
Here is a dainty and colorful mid-eighteenth-century English sampler executed entirely in cross and petit point stitches making it a suitable project for any skill level.
A four-sided arcaded border of daisies and dianthus surrounds three pious verses with delicate horizontal floral bands... Read more
This extraordinary piece of seventeenth century needlework was originally executed with fine silks on a linen ground, in tent stitch, and is composed of many different slips" or spot motifs, cleverly fitted together. Many of these motifs have symbolic and/or heraldic significance, and they can... Read more
Try as we might, we cannot find another sampler to compare with this one by Sarah Brignell. It is a sampler unto itself: truly an original piece of folk art. The tiny central cartouche with the densely stitched scene floats like a little world unto itself in the midst of the exuberant garden of... Read more