Bloggger has today changed how they upload files and I am having such great difficulties uploading the detail image of this sampler I really want to show you. I'll try again tomorrow.
Here at last! However, the devil in the detail is the leaf and stalk which you can see almost at the bottom centre of this sampler. I was looking at this closely today with the expert stitchers of the North Dorset Embroiderers' Guild in order to have a more qualified interpretation of the stitching. Unlike the precise stitching exhibited for the most part on this somewhat chaotic sampler in
The Goodhart Collection, the leaf and stalk of this motif are rather crudely cross-stitched. It is no boast at all to say I could have done better myself. This is just one example of a growing number that we have examined now in close up digital detail that throws up such anomolies and I am beginning to believe, in view of the evidence, that a number of samplers and antique stitched items which initially may have been left or passed down in an unfinished state, have been opportunistically augmented by later generations of stitchers. I now have my eye on the Jane Bostocke sampler - particulary some of the figurative motifs which appear above the the text dedication. Maybe the time has come to question whether we should take all the stitching on a sampler at face value?
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The thought that came to my mind was an image of a mother or grandmother teaching a child to stitch and allowing them a place of honor on their sampler.
ReplyDeletei think this is one of many reasons i love the study and stitching of samplers. the question never stop and the results are on going. another to add to my list. thanks
ReplyDeleteWell said Jacqueline - in a perfect world wouldn't we all like to see the reverse of these magical pieces, or at least detailed photographs of the reverse side. I think that reverse stitch detail would give us even more information for this. I wonder how many decades it is since Jane Bostocke was inspected from the reverse side? Has this ever been done? If so, is there a photographic record?
ReplyDeleteIs it a coincidence that our comments appear next to a picture of Sarah Harris's sampler, another possible example of several stitcher's efforts? The varying dates alone lead to speculation about how many fingers contributed to this sampler. I'm just starting the lion and unicorn motif, and wondering how and who may have added some of these motifs to a sampler that at first glance says "Quaker". Jacqueline, have you ever seen any other sampler even similar to Sarah?
ReplyDeleteYour comments are so interesting and important that I shall have to make a separate post to answer them. My greatest concern is that some samplers such as Jane Bostocke's have been taken as granted to form the basis of many historical statements about female literacy etc, while no-one as far as I can see has ever forensically examined the sampler to ascertain whether it is all of one piece and hand - without that evidence one way or the other - or even some other that we have not anticipated - then historians are simply building castles in the air and they, in turn, are being used for further building blocks!
ReplyDeleteI've not stitched on another's sampler, but I have finished several decorative pieces started by relatives because I was asked to do so by the original stitchers. In their minds, an incomplete piece was without value. I'm guessing that if a sampler had sentimental value, it might be given to someone else to finish. If no such value was attached,an incomplete piece may have been considered just "fabric" to be handed on to an unskilled stitcher.
ReplyDeleteI myself have always wondered how many samplers there are out there that have been contributed to being made my a single person, when in fact several have worked on it. Wouldnt it be a wonderful gift, for a Mother or a teacher, ect, for several girls to get together and pass around a sampler, each adding their own motif~ like the 1840s signature quilts, or the Baltimore Album Quilts popular here in America in the 1850s~ each block done by a different person, and then 'presented' to the person of honor....who is to say that there werent 'presentation' samplers of the same sort?
ReplyDeletexoxxo rachael