Lot Essay
Mary Russell's sampler with its undulating landscape, beguiling figures, and dramatic silk-worked black background is the earliest-known piece within a spectacular group of American samplers, and now known to have been worked in Marblehead, Massachusettes, between 1784 and 1802, although previously their history has been confusing. This example belonged to a collector Mrs. Emma Blanxious Hodge (1862-1928) and was evidently acquired between 1914 and 1921 because it was not listed when the Hodge samplers were exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1914. It was, however surely included when the collection was exhibited there in 1922, for in 1921 it was illustrated in color by Ethel Stanwood Bolton and Eva Johnston Coe in their landmark study American Samplers. The Hodge collection, consisting of about 120 pieces, from many nations, included two very important colonial Boston samplers (Bolton & Coe, Pls. XXV and CVI), but Mary Russell's sampler was evidently considered "the star" of the collection and appeared on the cover of The Bulletin of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts for April, 1921.
How the collection was dispersed following the death of Mrs. Hodge remains uncertain, as was the specific origin of this sampler. Superb scholar, Nancy Graes Cabot of Boston, was the first to establish the schoolgirl origin of Boston's mid-eighteenth-century canvaswork pictures, now known as "the Fishing Lady" pictures (not necessarily including a fishing lady), and she published her conclusions in The Magazine Antiques of July 1941. She mentioned that the group then numbered fifty-eight, and she considered this work of Mary Russell, 1784, and a similar piece by Polly Ellis, 1791, as the latest-known examples, for their Marblehead origin was unsuspected. In the 1940s or 1950s, Mrs. Cabot tried to locate Mary Russell's sampler for inclusion in an exhibition, but its whereabouts were then unknown.
In later years, the similarity of figures found on Marblehead samplers with figures and black backgrounds on several Bristol, Rhode Island, samplers led to greater confusion, because Patty Coggeshall and other Bristol girls named Bristol on their samplers (see Betty Ring, Let Virtue Be a Guide to Thee: Needlework in the Education of Rhode Island Women, 1730-1830 (Providence: The Rhode Island Historical Society, 1983) figs. 106-111 and pp.212-214). Finally an explanation was discovered for the Bristol-Marblehead connection which came about when Sukey Jarvis Smith (1773-1809), a talented young lady from Bristol, visited extensively with her married sister in Marblehead and was introduced to the remarkable needlework being produced under the instruction of the town's pre-eminent schoolmistress, the widow Martha Tarr Barber (1734/5-1812). Upon her return to Bristol, her spectacular sampler must have caused quite a stir and soon influenced the patterns provided at Mrs. Usher's long-established school, which was just across the street from Sukey's home, and where she had no doubt studied earlier. Between about 1792 and 1794, Bristol samplers were worked with a combination of their earlier Newport motifs and the lively figures and dark backgrounds common to Marblehead. See "Samplers of Bristol" in Ring, Girlhood Embroidery, pp.190-193; also, Marblehead samplers, figs.152-154.
Mary Russell, who worked this sampler, unquestionably belonged to one of the many Russell families in Marblehead but her identity is unproven. Most likely she was descended from Lewis Russell (1700-1790) and Mary Savage (1709-1775). In 1791 a similar sampler was worked by their granddaughter, another Mary Russell (1778-1792), the daughter of their son, Captain John Rhodes Russell (1728-1811) and his second wife, Miriam Striker (1737-1817); see Sotheby's Sale 5500, October 24 and 25, 1986, lot 171. This sampler maker of 1784 may have been a cousin, the daughter of a younger son of Lewis, William Russell (1744-1818) and Mary Pickett. Their Mary was baptized December 1, 1771. Possibly she was a slightly older Mary Russell who was baptized February 14, 1768, the child of Benjamin Russell and Hannah Richardson. Both were born in Marblehead, but their life spans remain unknown.
Thirty-seven samplers from the Hodge Collection were auctioned in Sotheby's Sale 4438 on February 2, 1980. Many were foreign, and only eight of the twenty-six samplers recorded by Bolton and Coe were included. No one knows how Mary Russell's sampler made its way to Florida, and the fate of other fine examples, including the early Boston pieces, remains unknown.
How the collection was dispersed following the death of Mrs. Hodge remains uncertain, as was the specific origin of this sampler. Superb scholar, Nancy Graes Cabot of Boston, was the first to establish the schoolgirl origin of Boston's mid-eighteenth-century canvaswork pictures, now known as "the Fishing Lady" pictures (not necessarily including a fishing lady), and she published her conclusions in The Magazine Antiques of July 1941. She mentioned that the group then numbered fifty-eight, and she considered this work of Mary Russell, 1784, and a similar piece by Polly Ellis, 1791, as the latest-known examples, for their Marblehead origin was unsuspected. In the 1940s or 1950s, Mrs. Cabot tried to locate Mary Russell's sampler for inclusion in an exhibition, but its whereabouts were then unknown.
In later years, the similarity of figures found on Marblehead samplers with figures and black backgrounds on several Bristol, Rhode Island, samplers led to greater confusion, because Patty Coggeshall and other Bristol girls named Bristol on their samplers (see Betty Ring, Let Virtue Be a Guide to Thee: Needlework in the Education of Rhode Island Women, 1730-1830 (Providence: The Rhode Island Historical Society, 1983) figs. 106-111 and pp.212-214). Finally an explanation was discovered for the Bristol-Marblehead connection which came about when Sukey Jarvis Smith (1773-1809), a talented young lady from Bristol, visited extensively with her married sister in Marblehead and was introduced to the remarkable needlework being produced under the instruction of the town's pre-eminent schoolmistress, the widow Martha Tarr Barber (1734/5-1812). Upon her return to Bristol, her spectacular sampler must have caused quite a stir and soon influenced the patterns provided at Mrs. Usher's long-established school, which was just across the street from Sukey's home, and where she had no doubt studied earlier. Between about 1792 and 1794, Bristol samplers were worked with a combination of their earlier Newport motifs and the lively figures and dark backgrounds common to Marblehead. See "Samplers of Bristol" in Ring, Girlhood Embroidery, pp.190-193; also, Marblehead samplers, figs.152-154.
Mary Russell, who worked this sampler, unquestionably belonged to one of the many Russell families in Marblehead but her identity is unproven. Most likely she was descended from Lewis Russell (1700-1790) and Mary Savage (1709-1775). In 1791 a similar sampler was worked by their granddaughter, another Mary Russell (1778-1792), the daughter of their son, Captain John Rhodes Russell (1728-1811) and his second wife, Miriam Striker (1737-1817); see Sotheby's Sale 5500, October 24 and 25, 1986, lot 171. This sampler maker of 1784 may have been a cousin, the daughter of a younger son of Lewis, William Russell (1744-1818) and Mary Pickett. Their Mary was baptized December 1, 1771. Possibly she was a slightly older Mary Russell who was baptized February 14, 1768, the child of Benjamin Russell and Hannah Richardson. Both were born in Marblehead, but their life spans remain unknown.
Thirty-seven samplers from the Hodge Collection were auctioned in Sotheby's Sale 4438 on February 2, 1980. Many were foreign, and only eight of the twenty-six samplers recorded by Bolton and Coe were included. No one knows how Mary Russell's sampler made its way to Florida, and the fate of other fine examples, including the early Boston pieces, remains unknown.