Ann H. Vogdes,

In the 1820s and 30s a proclivity for working very large, beautifully stitched, pictorial samplers developed in Chester County, Pennsylvania. The best of these samplers feature lustrous lawns with grazing sheep, swans, deer and rabbits and a wonderful assortment of many other motifs on the samplers - flowers, birds, baskets and stars - some of them are Quaker in origin. They also include birds and butterflies, baskets of fruit, large blossom flowers, and an extraordinary cartouche encircling the verse. Ann H. Vogdes’ splendid sampler is the finest known example of this type and its provenance is equally significant. 

The sampler was in the very important Theodore H. Kapnek collection, exhibited at the American Folk Art Museum in 1978 and illustrated in both A Gallery of American Samplers The Theodore H. Kapnek Collection by Glee Krueger (E.P. Dutton, New York, 1978) and Arts and Crafts of Chester County, Pennsylvania by Margaret Berwind Schiffer (Schiffer Publishing Ltd, Exton, PA, 1980).  

Ann was born July 21, 1808, the oldest child of Aaron and Ann Wayne (Hayman) Vogdes. The family lived in Willistown, Chester County where both Aaron and Ann were raised. Sadly, Ann died in 1826 at age 18; she is buried in Old Saint David’s Church Cemetery in Wayne, Pennsylvania. 

The ancestry of the Vogdes family is traced back to Reynard Vogdes (1713-1750) who was born in Germany and was in Philadelphia by 1739. Ann’s maternal ancestry includes General Anthony Wayne (1745-1796), the distinguished Revolutionary War general, considered one of the country’s Founding Fathers. There are many published sources regarding this family’s history and a substantial file of research accompanies this sampler.

Worked in silk in linen, the sampler is in very good condition with some slight loss. It has been conservation mounted and is in a fine maple and cherry corner-block frame.