RSN.590 | RSN Collection & Archive

Sampler

Margaret Bartlett
Royal School of Needlework

Circa 1930s

London

Churchwork sampler completed by Margaret Bartlett in the 1930s while a student at the Royal School of Needlework.

Churchwork sampler completed by Margaret Bartlett in the 1930s while a student at the Royal School of Needlework. Her sampler is worked in silk and gold threads (including plate, pearl purl, gold twist, and check) on a white linen ground. It features nine ecclesiastical, heraldic, and mythical motifs.

The top three motifs are a pomegranate, crown, and fleur-de-lis. The pomegranate is worked in bricking, gold twist application, couching, or nue, satin stitch, and padded satin stitch. The crown, which involves pearls and artificial gems, involves chipping, cutwork, bricking, couching, and long and short stitch. The fleur de lis is made of variations on bricking and basketweave, gold twist application, and couching of gimp thread.

The central row of motifs features two coats of arms flanking a cross. The left-most motif is of an unknown origin, but seems to be heraldic in nature and has in the middle a Christogram. It is worked in gold twist application, trellis stitch, chipping, padded satin stitch, and what may be guimped embroidery. The centre of the motif is made of red velvet. The cross in the middle of the sampler, which features 'INRI' in the middle and radiating sun rays, is stitched in bricking, couching, long and short stitch, gold twist application, and plate application. The letters 'INRI' stand for 'Iesus Nazarenus Rex ludaeorum', meaning 'Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews'. To the right of the cross is the coat of arms of Brasenose College, University of Oxford. The college was founded by the Bishop of Lincoln. The coat of arms is worked in cross stitch.

At the bottom of the sampler are a seahorse, a wyvern, and a decorative flame design. The seahorse, which symbolises patience, persistence, and contentment, is worked in Burden stitch, plate application, long and short stitch, basketweave, flat cutwork, couching, and or nue. The wyvern is taken from the letter 'T' in the Book of Kells, now housed at Trinity College, Dublin. It is made of bricking, couching, leather application, and plate application. The rainbow flame design is made of Burden stitches, long and short stitches, bricking, and couching. It is possible that the flame-esque motif also derives from an illuminated manuscript or other medieval source.

The sampler is typical of churchwork samplers made by RSN students throughout most the twentieth century. Students were made to produce churchwork samplers on a white linen ground featuring a variety of ecclesiastical and sometimes heraldic motifs worked in silk and gold threads. These samplers were made to practice motifs and embroidery techniques employed in the production of ecclesiastical and heraldic textiles, as churches and institutions with coats of arms were often customers of the RSN's Embroidery Studio. Churchwork samplers made before and after World War II involve a central cross and a line of a pomegranate, crown, and fleur-de-lis at the top, as is the case in Bartlett's sampler. It may be that the other motifs involved in RSN churchwork samplers from this period would have been the embroiderer's choice.

Miss Margaret Bartlett graduated from the Royal School of Needlework Training School Programme in the 1930s with high marks. She went on to manage the RSN Workroom and Studio, as well as produce and/or contribute to a number of other pieces within the RSN Collection today (with examples including RSN.2788 and RSN.2793).

width: 48cm
height: 51cm

linen
silk thread
metal thread
leather
pearls
artificial gemstone

Burden stitch