Sampler
Object name
Maker
Date made
1788
Place made
Description
Sampler made by Anne Elizabetha Evans in 1788.
Content description
Sampler made by Anne Elizabetha Evans in 1788. Anne has used cross, tent, stem, and circle stitches in silk threads on a linen ground. The sampler has a strawberry border and at the top is a framed inscription which reads, 'You Whose Fond Wishes Do To Heaven ASpire/Who Make Those Blest Abodes Your Sole Desire/If You are Wise and Hope That Bliss to Gain/Use Well Your Time Live not an Hour in Vain/Let Not The Morrow Your Vain Thoughts Employ/But Think This Day The Last you Shall Enjoy/When Disease Obstructs The Labering Breath/When The Pulse Thicken and Each Gasp is Death.../Even Then Religion Shall Sustain The Just/Grace Their Last Moments Nor Desert Their Dust'. The verse comes from Thomas Dilworth's A New Guide to the English Tongue, first published in 1744 and republished repeatedly well into the nineteenth century. On either side of the verse are flowering plants in vases and stylised crowns.
Below the verse is a pastoral scene with a shepherdess holding a crook. She is dressed in yellow and seated under a tree. She is holding a bunch of leaves out for one of her sheep to nibble and has a small black and white dog playing near her feet. On the left of the scene, a second sheep is sleeping beneath a flowering plant, the stem of which is worked in chain stitch. On the right a deer and rabbit are beneath a fruit tree, also worked in chain stitch, with red fruits. There are two butterflies, a squirrel, three brown birds with a red breast, and a blackbird with a red fruit in its beak.
Towards the bottom of the piece is the name Anne Elizabetha Evans and the date 1788 within a small floral border. To either side is a mirror image of a conifer, a flowering plant in a basket, and a flowering shrub. A small red butterfly hovers above each planter.
It has thus far been impossible to concretely identify the Anne Elizabetha Evans who made this sampler.
Below the verse is a pastoral scene with a shepherdess holding a crook. She is dressed in yellow and seated under a tree. She is holding a bunch of leaves out for one of her sheep to nibble and has a small black and white dog playing near her feet. On the left of the scene, a second sheep is sleeping beneath a flowering plant, the stem of which is worked in chain stitch. On the right a deer and rabbit are beneath a fruit tree, also worked in chain stitch, with red fruits. There are two butterflies, a squirrel, three brown birds with a red breast, and a blackbird with a red fruit in its beak.
Towards the bottom of the piece is the name Anne Elizabetha Evans and the date 1788 within a small floral border. To either side is a mirror image of a conifer, a flowering plant in a basket, and a flowering shrub. A small red butterfly hovers above each planter.
It has thus far been impossible to concretely identify the Anne Elizabetha Evans who made this sampler.
Dimensions
width: 34.5cm
height: 45.5cm
height: 45.5cm
Materials
Stitches
Techniques
Motifs
Catalogue number
RSN.1213
© Royal School of Needlework