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拍品專文
The needlework sampler illustrated here represents the eleventh and most recently discovered example from a small group of samplers made in Dover, New Hampshire between 1800 and 1810. These samplers are all products of the tutelage of Sophia Cushing Hayes Wyatt (1781-1857), who operated two schools in Dover, the first between 1800-1804 and the second between 1808-1810.
The earliest of these samplers dates from 1800, the year Wyatt opened her first school, and the samplers all share several consistent elements over the course of the next decade. All samplers are wrought with silk thread on an olive green linsey-woolsey ground. While the majority have a wide floral border emanating from a basket at the lower corners, one has only a sawtooth stitched border, two have a sawtooth and meandering floral border, and the example illustrated here is unfinished. Other features shared by this group are the basket of flowers centering the top horizontal edge, a pair of large birds at each top corner, a smaller animal pair (usually birds) at the base worked in with a central motif trees. The wrought alphabetical registers and inscribed verse below are stylistically uniform, as is the nature of the information about the needleworker. This wrought reserve consistently records the needleworker's name, the date of her birth and her age at the time the needlework was completed; in some instances the location "Dover" is included. The greatest area of differentiation, however, lies in the content of the wrought verse; to this end, the themes are generally death, friendship, and truth.
For further information on Sophia Cushing Hayes Wyatt and her schools, see Rita F. Conant, "Schoolgirl Samplers of Dover, New Hampshire," Antiques (August 1997), pp.198-203.
The earliest of these samplers dates from 1800, the year Wyatt opened her first school, and the samplers all share several consistent elements over the course of the next decade. All samplers are wrought with silk thread on an olive green linsey-woolsey ground. While the majority have a wide floral border emanating from a basket at the lower corners, one has only a sawtooth stitched border, two have a sawtooth and meandering floral border, and the example illustrated here is unfinished. Other features shared by this group are the basket of flowers centering the top horizontal edge, a pair of large birds at each top corner, a smaller animal pair (usually birds) at the base worked in with a central motif trees. The wrought alphabetical registers and inscribed verse below are stylistically uniform, as is the nature of the information about the needleworker. This wrought reserve consistently records the needleworker's name, the date of her birth and her age at the time the needlework was completed; in some instances the location "Dover" is included. The greatest area of differentiation, however, lies in the content of the wrought verse; to this end, the themes are generally death, friendship, and truth.
For further information on Sophia Cushing Hayes Wyatt and her schools, see Rita F. Conant, "Schoolgirl Samplers of Dover, New Hampshire," Antiques (August 1997), pp.198-203.