Sampler

Title: Batrix Carter's sampler 1810

Object Name: Sampler

Object ID: 2012.030.03

Creator: Carter, Beatrix (1788-1839)

Place of Origin: Fitchburg, MA

Date: 1810

Description: Sampler. Alphabetic bands with leaf and sawtooth borders. Birds and flowers in panel at bottom. "Batrix Carter's sampler 1810". Linen and silk. Beatrix Carter (1788-1839) of Fitchburg, MA, married Levi Farwell (1776-1840).

Undyed linen plain weave ground; silk embroidery threads in pinks, greens, blues, yellows, orange, and black-brown. All four edges of the linen are folded to the back and hemmed with orange silk, which has faded to pale yellow. Inside this hem stitching is a saw-tooth border of alternating orange and green. A second, double-saw-tooth border was stitched of pink and blue. There is one uppercase alphabet, one lowercase alphabet, and one set of numerals in colored cross stitching. Beneath is an uppercase alphabet in script and another in Alsatian and modified-Alsatian stitches. Beneath these alphabets, the sampler is signed "Batrix Carter's sampler 1810." Dividing the lines of letters and numerals are thick rows of complex cross-stitched designs. The maker saved her most ambitious work for the lower section of the sampler, where she used long satin stitches to embroider two pairs of confronted birds on either side of an ornate flowering plant.

Material: Linen
Silk

Dimensions: H-14.5 W-11.7 inches

Provenance: Part of the Perry-Dudley Family Archive and Shepard Collection.

Credit Line: Gift of Klaudia S. Shepard

People: Carter, Beatrix (1788-1839)

Subjects: Embroidery

View Transcription