A very lovely sampler featuring a wonderful subject matter and a verse that we haven’t seen before, this was made by Letitia Baverstock in 1822. The poem was published in 1798 in The Universal Spelling-Book or, A New and Guide to the English Language by Daniel Fenning, a schoolmaster and author of other books for school children. The publisher was L. Bennet, Rotterdam, and the specific section of the book is entitled, “Verses on Particular Occasions.”

Many finely worked motifs provide excellent embellishments with a bouquet of flowers tied with a white silk bowknot being the most prominent. The intricate border is unusual – an outstanding composition that provides the perfect framework for this splendid sampler.  

Letitia was the daughter of William and Elizabeth (Sutton) Baverstock, who seem to have lived in Andover, Hampshire when the sampler was made. Letitia was born in 1810, the 9th of their 11 children. In 1838, she married William White, a sculptor. They were living in Bath, with their two children. Letitia died in 1899. 

Worked in silk on wool, the sampler is in excellent condition. It has been conservation mounted and remains in its outstanding, original frame.

This wonderful sampler is signed, Amelia Bowerman Her Work decbr the first 1834” and along the next register down, “Aged 7 years” – a remarkable  accomplishment for such a young girl. The pictorial scene is delightful, with two birds perched on slanted tress (one of the trunks is partially unfinished), animals tucked behind fences and large butterflies flying above. 

Amelia was born on September 24, 1827, the daughter of Thomas and Mary (Hudson) Bowerman of Bicester, a village in Oxfordshire. The 1851 census shows that she was living with her parents and that she was a dressmaker, not surprisingly given her talents in the needle arts. She remained single and died young, at age 30. 

The sampler is worked in silk on wool and is in very good condition with some very minor areas of stabilization to the wool. It has been conservation mounted and is in a molded and black painted frame. 

Scottish samplers frequently share many appealing characteristics, and this handsome sampler includes many of these traits: the blue stone house with a slate roof, stylized diamond trees, pairs of deer, lettering alternating in a red and green palette and the listing of many family initials. The samplermaker was Isabella White who was born circa 1820 to Adam White and Catharine Maxton; their initials are at the start of the row of family initials. The 1841 census includes this family living at a house named Currachrone - which Isabella stitched following her name. This was in Crieff, a town west of Perth. The initials of her siblings, including James, Ann, John and William, are also on the sampler. In November 1850, Isabella married James Smith and they had at least three children.

Other attributes of the sampler include the large eyelet stitched uppercase line alphabet and the little scene of a spotted dog and deer as well as the large black birds perched on the trees. The needlework is very fine throughout, and the composition is excellent.

The sampler was worked in silk on linen and is in excellent condition. It has been conservation mounted and remains in its original beveled frame.

A charming sampler that shares the wonderful and classic characteristics of Scottish samplers, this is signed, “Antonia McLellan 1843,” underneath the blue striped house, fruit basket, and flowering tree scene. Also within the Scottish samplermaking tradition, the maker included the names and of her parents and many family initials; these are listed in the lines below the alphabets.  

Antonia was born on July 1, 1829 to Samuel and Agnes (Milroy) McLellan who lived in Balmaghie, a village in Kirkudbright, Scotland. In 1873, Antonia married James Armstrong. 

The border of this sampler is very good – with heart-shaped elements providing an excellent framework with little geometric corner blocks. 

Worked in wool on linen, the sampler is in excellent condition. It has been conservation mounted and is in a molded mahogany frame.

This is a beautifully made and particularly handsome English band sampler. It is signed, “Sarah Slade Was Born on October The Six In 1789 Aged Teen [sic] Years,” and along the bottom “This Was Ended Octbr 31, 1799.” She lived in Beercrocombe, a village in Somerset, England.

An excellent assortment of various bands, alphabets and verse provide proof of Sarah’s advanced skills in the needle arts. As is obvious from the photo taken of the back prior to mounting, Sarah’s instructress must have been a wonderfully talented teacher who was able to guide her students to stitch their samplers in such a way that the backs of their samplers are as beautifully finished as the fronts.

One verse reads,

The winter tree resembles me Whose sap lies in the root The spring draws nigh as it, so I Shall bud, I hope, and shoot.”  Along the bottom, Sarah stitched, “Remember now thy creator in the days of they youth,  from Ecclesiastes 12:1.

Sarah was indeed born October 6, 1789, to Thomas and Sarah (Crabb) Slade of Somerset County England. In 1808, she married William Salway (1782-1862) who is recorded in various census records as a horse doctor and a veterinary surgeon. Our research turned up information on William’s great-great-great-grandfather, John Salway (1610-1672) who was Vicar of Whitchurch Canonicorum, in Dorset. 

The sampler was worked in silk on linen and is in excellent condition. It has been conservation mounted and in a molded and black painted frame. 

detail of verso

Among the most significant, aesthetically appealing and interesting of all American Quaker samplers are those made at the Female Association Schools of New York. These samplers were made by young girls from the working class and not as, were generally the case, by the daughters of the well-to-do. The Female Association was established in 1798 by a group of Quaker ladies in New York whose initial mission was to aid the sick and poor of the city. In 1800, the focus of the association turned to education and a charity school was founded in lower Manhattan. 

The initial years were interrupted by the yellow fever plague but by 1807 the school was well established and by 1810 it was considered a success, reporting a daily attendance of over 100 schoolgirls. A second school opened in 1810 and a third in 1815, followed by the Flushing Female Association School. These schools educated poor, female children, regardless of their race or religion, and hundreds of girls from impoverished families attended the schools. The curriculum was highly structured, and the schoolgirls were taught needleworking along with academic matters, gaining skills that would increase their opportunities as adults. Some of the students went on to become teachers. In 1828, the Female Association Schools were closed, in part due to the increase in the number of public schools.

The finest of the extraordinary samplers made at the Female Association School are very small and all of the samplers exhibit excellent workmanship. They were frequently made as presentation pieces, generally for the philanthropic Quaker ladies who contributed to the funding and administration of the schools. Only eleven samplers made at the Female Association Schools are currently known to exist; they date between 1813 and 1825.

We are delighted to offer this outstanding Female Association School sampler made by Eliza McMannus, dated December 1813. A beautifully composed sampler, it is one of the earliest and certainly one of the very finest of the group. These samplers all exhibit a classic Quaker aesthetic and most of the samplers were accomplished with extremely fine stitches. Eliza’s needlework is outstanding, with delicate and precise lettering and motifs, yet her sampler has an excellent visual strength. 

Other samplers made at the Female Association Schools are in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New-York Historical Society, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian, Wyck Charitable Trust, Monmouth CO Historical Association, and significant private collections. That in The Metropolitan Museum is below and additionally viewed here.

(above) Charlotte Gardner, Female Association School, December 23, 1813,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The accompanying information on the Museum site reads, 

“The Quakers were the first group to believe that female education should equal that of males, and that children of all classes and races should be educated. To this end, in the early years of the nineteenth century, they formed the first schools for non-elite girls in New York City—the Female Association Schools. These schools became the seed from which New York City’s public school system grew. This example is an extremely rare sampler made in 1813 by a twelve-year-old girl named Charlotte Gardner who attended the first Female Association School.” 

We offered this Charlotte Gardner sampler in our catalogue, Samplings, vol. XXXVI (2009). It is highly likely that Charlotte and our samplermaker, Eliza McMannus, were classmates. 

As stated, most of the Female Association school samplers were made to be presented to the Quaker ladies who served on the boards and committees. Eliza worked her sampler for Mary Thompson to give as a present to Elizabeth Thompson. Mary Thompson was an important and active member of the Female Association and one of the early supporters of the schools. 

Much has been written about the Female Association School samplers by Betty Ring, in Volume II of Girlhood Embroidery: Samplers and Pictorial Needlework 1650 - 1850 (Knopf, 1993), and Glee F. Krueger, A Gallery of American Samplers: The Theodore H. Kapnek Collection (E. P. Dutton in association with the Museum of American Folk Art, 1978). Historical information about the history of the Female Association and its schools can be found in History of the Public School Society of the City of New York by William Oland Bourne (Geo. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1873).

Eliza’s sampler was in the highly regarded collection of Joan Stephens, a renowned sampler and needlework collector. Joan Stephens and Betty Ring were close friends and when Joan’s collection was sold at single owner sale at Sotheby’s (The Joan Stephens Collection: Important Samplers and Pictorial Needlework, January, 1997), Betty Ring wrote a foreword for the catalogue, stating that Joan, “bought representative examples of the most important types of American school girl embroideries .… Her interest in excellence, as well as the historic background of these objects, resulted in an exceptional collection.”

The Eliza McMannus sampler was worked in silk on linen and is in pristine condition. It has been conservation mounted and is in an early 19th century molded and black painted frame, with UV filter Museum Glass. The sampler measures 7¼ inches by 8¼ inches; framed it measures 10 inches by 14¼ inches.

We should note that not all of the Female Association School samplers remain in good condition but they are, nonetheless, considered significant (see the Catherine Parsells sampler at the Cooper Hewitt).

This is a handsome sampler featuring a fine scene of a large, pale yellow Federal, double-chimney house and a richly worked tree. A large flowering branch provides further embellishment and a series of borders frame the composition well. It was made by Emily J. Clapp, age 12 in 1830, living in Sharon, Massachusetts, a town about 20 miles south of Boston. She included a verse that is a particular favorite of ours,

This needle work of mine doth tell / When I was young I learned well / For by my elders I was taught / Not to spend my time for naught.

Emily’s family history is published in Record of the Clapp Family in America, by Ebenezer Clapp (Boston, 1876) tracing the ancestry to Thomas Clapp (1597-1684) born in Dorchester, England, arrived in Massachusetts in 1633, settling initially in Dorchester, Massachusetts but removing within a few years to Weymouth. Within another generation the family removed to Dedham. Five generations later, Emily Jane Clapp was born in 1818 to Samuel and Abigail (Paul) Clapp, who were married in Dedham in 1795 and then resided in Sharon. Emily was the 12th of their 14 children. In 1842, she married William Tilden of Marshfield. They didn’t have children, but, interestingly, they adopted a daughter of Emily’s older brother, Warren Clapp, Sarah Clapp. Sarah changed her name to Elzina Tilden. Emily died in 1885. 

The sampler was worked in silk on linen and is in excellent condition. It has been conservation mounted and is in a fine, figured maple frame. 

A very fine and endearing little sampler, this is from the renowned collection of Micheal and Elizabeth Feller and is accompanied by a copy of their positively gorgeous hardcover book, The Needlework Collection: 2 (Needleprint, 2012), by Elizabeth Feller. It is published in the book as figure F364 in the section, “Letters of Love.” The book alone is currently offered on Amazon for $819! 

The sampler is described as a stitched memento, more of a Valentine, with minutely stitched motifs including a heart. The sentiment,

When this you see pray think of me / And Keep me in your mind / Let all the world say what they will / Speak of me as you find,

is one that we occasionally find on other samplers, always adding great appeal. 

Worked in silk on linen, the sampler retains its original satin ribbon edging. It has been conservation mounted and is in its original, gold leaf frame. 

front of book that accompanies the sampler

inside of book

view of book from side

A canterbury is a wonderful English form, originally designed for holding sheet music or folio prints. Now generally used for books and magazines. We find them to be terrific for holding and displaying samplers, obviously.

English, mid-19th century, mahogany, drawer is beautifully dovetailed front and back, original brasses and casters.