This creative sampler features a large Georgian Period brick home with transom window over door. Margaret even included a door knocker on the house door! Most of the sampler is worked in cross-stitch but the unusual motifs at the bottom are worked in satin and chenille stitches to make them stand out. In the lower left corner, a satin-stitched ostrich stands under a branch with pendulous fruit worked in chenille. (When have you seen an ostrich in a sampler?!) In the lower right is a lioness under the branch of a different type with a big chenille flower. The chenille adds a three-dimensional touch while the satin-stitched animals (including two swans) and ground in front of house add a satiny boldness. Margaret used an exceedingly early and often published hymn about the virtue Wisdom to decorate her sampler and show that she was a moral and pious person. She decorated the edges of her sampler with a border of grape vines. Between her border and the large box enclosing the hymn, she used cross-stitch to create more-often seen motifs such as birds, flowers (both potted and floating alone), and compotes full of fruit. Margaret was a very clever and creative young lady. This commanding sampler resides in a period, ebonized, beaded wood frame measuring 24” x 28”. Condition is very good but for a bit of bleeding to some of the black threads, a repair to the canvas between the 6th and 7th line of text and a pulled thread on the body of the lioness. Margaret dated her sampler 1832. The poem in Margaret’s sampler reads:
Wisdom has treasures greater far
Than east or west unfold
And her reward is more secure
Than is the gain of gold
In her right hand she holds to view
A length of happy years
And in her left the prize of fame
And honor bright appears
She guides the young with innocence
In pleasures path to tread
A crown of glory she bestows
Upon the hoary head
According to her labours rise
So her rewards increase
Her ways are ways of pleasantness
And all her paths are peace
#5932 $3500
