untitled sampler (From Principles of Friendship)

Leah Townsend, artist

untitled sampler (From Principles of Friendship), 1815

Where object was made: England, United Kingdom

Material/technique: cross-stitching; silk thread; satin stitch; embroidering; wool

Dimensions:
Object Height/Width (Height x Width): 53.34 x 46.99 cm
Object Height/Width (Height x Width): 21 x 18 1/2 in

Credit line: Source unknown

Accession number: 0000.0959

Not on display

Add to portfolio

If you wish to reproduce this image, please submit an image request

Images

Label texts

Inventing Childhood

Needlework samplers constituted an important component in the lives and education of Western women from as early as the 16th century. Young girls were taught to sew by the age of five, and needlework was part of school curricula in Europe and the Americas. Samplers helped young girls improve their needlework by teaching them new stitches and motifs, but they also reinforced other educational priorities, such as learning the alphabet and memorizing Bible verses. By the 18th and 19th centuries when these particular examples were created, samplers served to demonstrate the stitcher’s knowledge, as well as her virtue and sense of industry. Many were signed by their makers, who often specified how old they were at the time of completion.

Archive Label date unknown:
Nine-year -old Leah Townsend’s sampler is dedicated to the memory of the late Reverend Robert Marshman, a Baptist pastor. The growing importance of dissenter churches in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century marks the lessening of the established Church of England’s hold over the institutions governing society.