Anna Christina Caroline Huldberg

We always enjoy offering samplers made by Scandinavian schoolgirls although we find them only infrequently, as they are rarely available. This delightful sampler is more remarkable than most in that the samplermaker can be identified. 

Anna Christina Carolina Hulberg (she abbreviated her two middle names as the full names wouldn’t fit) stitched the initials of her parents, Gustav Huldberg and Magdalena Kellmodin, each under a crown. She was born on September 7, 1819, in Uppsala, a city about 43 miles north of Stockholm. The sampler is dated October 27, 1827:

Anna seems to have remained single and died in 1904 in Uppsala. 

The whimsical scene that Anna stitched depicts an animal, likely a dog, jumping on a tree trunk. Two other animals, perhaps oversized squirrels, are on the tree’s branches. 

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