WROUGHT BY LOUISA HENRIETTA SNYDER (1796-1888), PHILADELPHIA, CIRCA 1805

Identifiable with an angled view of a brick house, distinctively rendered willow trees, courting couples, and an array of animals, this needlework sampler is part of a group named "house and garden" samplers by Betty Ring. Known examples were made from 1796 to 1834 and while its instructor or instructors are unknown, the group relates to slightly earlier work featuring mansions with terraced gardens wrought under the tutelage of Mary Coeleman Zeller. A sampler similar to the example offered here is dated 1818 and in the collections of Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library (acc. no. 1967.1717A) (see Betty Ring, Girlhood Embroidery: American Samplers & Pictorial Needlework, 1650-1850, vol. 2 (New York, 1993), pp. 361-369; Susan Burrows Swan, "Recent Discoveries About Philadelphia Samplers," The Magazine Antiques (December 1989), pp. 1340-1343, pls. XI, XIII). The sampler in the present lot was wrought by Louisa Henrietta Snyder (1796-1888), who in 1880 and 1884 was living at 4502 Chestnut Street and in 1888 was buried in Philadelphia's Old Cathedral Catholic Cemetery. The verse inscribed in the center is from Oliver Goldsmith's, "The Hermit" from The Vicar of Wakefield and transcribed in full reads: No flocks, that range the valley free, To slaughter I condemn; Taught by that Power that pities me, I learn to pity them.