Sampler

Object Type
Samplers like this were exercises in embroidery and needle lace stitches and techniques, which had become well established as part of a girl's education by the middle of the 17th century. Typically in this long thin form, they were filled with rows of repeating patterns worked in coloured silks and whitework embroidery, sometimes interspersed with figures or floral motifs. This example also includes cutwork and needle lace.

Design & Designing
Samplers tended to follow tradition in their form. They often preserved motifs and patterns long after such designs had ceased to be part of contemporary fashion for the decoration of clothes and furnishings. The needlework skills demonstrated in these pieces, however, would be important attributes in a girl's adulthood, in the management of her household and the making, mending and decoration of her own and her family's clothes.

Ownership & Use
Following the usual development of needlework skills of a young educated girl in the mid-17th century, the maker of this piece had probably already completed an easier sampler in coloured silks. We know by comparison with signed and dated examples that she might have been aged only nine or ten when she made this.