Embroidered sampler

1659

Not on view

This sampler features motifs common to Dutch samplers of the period, including flower pots, birds flanking trees, and pierced hearts. The sampler maker also stitched an ape spinning yarn, possibly symbolic of the thread of life. Apes appear in seventeenth-century Dutch and English needlework, functioning as a mirror or critique of human behavior, or representing the sense of taste in compositions of the five senses. The letters AI (or AJ, as "I" and "J" were written interchangeably in the Latin alphabet at this time) and the year 1659 are stitched onto the linen, most likely the initials of the maker and the year in which she completed her work.

Artwork Details

Overview

Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Provenance

Title: Embroidered sampler
Date: 1659
Culture: Dutch
Medium: Linen and silk on linen
Dimensions: 6 3/4 × 25 3/4 in. (17.1 × 65.4 cm)
Classification: Textiles-Embroidered
Credit Line: From the Collection of Mrs. Lathrop Colgate Harper, Bequest of Mabel Herbert Harper, 1957
Object Number: 57.122.174
Curatorial Department: European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

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Seasons and Elements (Summer) (set of four), Charles Le Brun French, Canvas; silk, wool, and metal-thread embroidery in tent stitch (316 stitches per sq. inch, 49 per sq. cm.), French, Paris — Seasons and Elements (Summer) (set of four)
Multiple artists/makers
ca. 1683

Seasons and Elements (Fire) (set of four), Charles Le Brun French, Canvas; silk, wool, and metal-thread embroidery in tent stitch (316 stitches per sq. inch, 49 per sq. cm.), French, Paris — Seasons and Elements (Fire) (set of four)
Multiple artists/makers
ca. 1683

Seasons and Elements (Spring) (set of four), Charles Le Brun French, Canvas; silk, wool, and metal-thread embroidery in tent stitch (316 stitches per sq. inch, 49 per sq. cm.), French, Paris — Seasons and Elements (Spring) (set of four)
Multiple artists/makers
ca. 1683

Seasons and Elements (Air) (set of four), Charles Le Brun French, Canvas; silk, wool, and metal-thread embroidery in tent stitch (316 stitches per sq. inch, 49 stitches per sq. cm.), French, Paris — Seasons and Elements (Air) (set of four)
Multiple artists/makers
ca. 1683

David and Abigail, Linen embroidered with silk thread, British — David and Abigail
British
mid-17th century

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