- Vermont Needlework Sampler, “This sampler was executed at
Waitsfield 1821 by Joanna Barnard, aged 10 years: born at Waitsfield
October 12th 1810,” stitched with silk threads on a linen ground,
with seven rows of alphabets over name and date lines with light blue
Queen’s stitch on two edges, and a pious verse flanked by a bird, dog,
tree, and plant, the whole enclosed in a meandering flowering vine,
(toning, minor stains), 16 1/2 x 17 1/2 in., in a later frame.
Exhibitions: The First Effort of My Infant Hand: Early Vermont Samplers,
The Bennington Museum, June 1997–November 1997.
Note: According to previous research by The Bennington Museum,
this Waitsfield, Vermont, sampler exhibits a few of several distinctive
elements of Waitsfield style samplers: satin stitched flowing vines which
twine around the sampler, a distinctive % character after Joanna’s
script alphabet, and a floral ground line she used under her name.
In History of the town of Waitsfield, Vermont, 1782-1908: with family
genealogies, G.E. Littlefield, Matt Bushnell Jones, Boston, 1909, it
is listed that Joanna was the daughter of Ebenezer (b. 1783) and
Experience (Childs, b. 1784). Barnard, who resided at the paternal farm
in Waitsfield where she was the second child of six children born to the
couple, married Anson Fisk (b. Oct. 31, 1806), and died December 21,
1891.
$1,200-1,
12.
Needlework Sampler, “Susan Delano, Stowe, Vermont, Made by a
Tamil girl.,” the sampler was stitched by a girl whose parents were
missionaries in Ceylon, (now Sri Lanka), and later moved to Stowe,
Vermont, stitched with silk threads on a linen ground with rows of
English and Ceylon alphabets, also stitched “1855 Oodoo Pitty/Jaffna
Ceylon,” which was Susan’s Ceylonese name; the “made by a Tamil
girl” phrase refers to the Tamil Indians, a native ethnic group in northern
Ceylon, 11 1/2 x 12 in., in a mahogany veneer frame.Exhibitions: Heckscher Museum, Huntington, New York, By a Child’s
Hand Wrought: American Folk Art by Children, October 20–November
30, 1979; The Bennington Museum, The First Effort of My Infant Hand:
Early Vermont Samplers, June 1997–November 1997.
$300-13.
Needlework Sampler, “Executed by Helen McL..n/aged 9 years,”
1827, stitched with seven rows of alphabets over the lower register with
a house, two dogs, a girl, peacock, and a bird perched on a flowering
bush, enclosed on three sides with a scroll border, (toning, fading,
minor stains), 11 1/4 x 16 3/4 in., in a later burl veneer frame.
$300-online bidding at http://www.skinnerinc.com 15