Embroidered Sampler

Priscilla T. Glover

1798 · Embroidered silk on linen/wool · The American Wing

This piece belongs to a group of the least formal samplers thought to have been made under the tutelage of one Salem teacher. Worked in silk on a green linsey-woolsey ground, they often have flowering vine borders and a crisscross woven basket of flowers. More elegant versions of this type of basket can be found as carved ornaments on Federal furniture made in the Salem area. Other motifs on this sampler--the sawtooth border and the row of stylized strawberries beneath Priscilla's name--relate to earlier local examples. The motto on this sampler seems to have been particularly popular; it is also stitched on Rebekah Munro's Providence sampler (ca. 1791; 1984.331.13) and Emily Kittredge's sampler from Nelson, New Hampshire (1826; 1984.331.5).

Artist

Priscilla T. Glover

Date

1798

Medium

Embroidered silk on linen/wool

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Gift of Barbara Schiff Sinauer, 1984