Sampler
Ann Magdalen Yates’ biblical sampler is one of a group unique to New York City. Created in the years between 1746 and 1833, there are some thirty known samplers characterized by a design format of horizontal bands featuring illustrations of Biblical stories, as well as secular images. They are also all decorated with a stepped strawberry outer border. Ann’s unfinished sampler, stitched around 1802, has five horizontal bands, three that are wide and two that are narrow. It illustrates a single biblical story, secular motifs also found on earlier biblical samplers, pastoral imagery, and a distinctive central band with a house and tree and flower motifs.
On the lower left, Ann stitched St. John the Evangelist, with an eagle, receiving the Book of Revelations on the Isle of Patmos. On the lower right there is a secular image of the cherry picker, derived from a print of La Cuillette des Cerises, a painting by François Boucher (1703-1770). The central unfinished tree at the bottom may have been intended to portray a tree of life, as was typical in biblical samplers. The wide top band features romantic pictorial motifs: two women offering a gift to a single man; a couple holding hands facing outward. The central wide band is a carefully organized rhythmic composition of identical trees and flowers on either side of the two-bay red brick house. The top narrow band is unfinished, as Ann’s inscription does not include her age or the date she completed her sampler. The band below that is empty, perhaps intended to hold a verse or further inscription.
The Met’s sampler collection also includes an earlier New York City biblical sampler by Sarah Lawrence dating to 1758 (1999.271). As is typical of the eighteenth-century biblical samplers, Sarah illustrates only bible stories considered significant to one of the core beliefs of the Reformed Protestant churches to which the girls who made these samplers belonged. The central teaching of the Reformed churches was that there should be an unmediated relationship between God and man; this direct relationship was illustrated on her sampler by images such as Moses receiving the Ten Commandments, and Eve being created from Adam’s rib.
The long-lived New York biblical sampler style must have been taught by several still unidentified teachers, and the schools where they taught are yet to be discovered. For the most part, the girls who made these samplers were the daughters of quite well-to-do Reformed Protestant families, although from different cultural backgrounds.
Ann Yates’s parents, Joseph Yates (1759-1828) and Magdalen Many (1753-1806) were married in 1785 at the German Reformed Church of New York; and Ann, born on April 6, 1790, was baptized at Trinity Church in Manhattan on May 23, 1790. Ann had an older sister and brother, Catherine Martha (1785-1860) and Benjamin (b. 1787). After her mother’s death in 1806, Ann’s father remarried and a half-sister, Sarah, was born June 30, 1810. While Ann’s adult life remains unknown, her carefully stitched work helps to document the decorative evolution of this important group of New York City samplers.
On the lower left, Ann stitched St. John the Evangelist, with an eagle, receiving the Book of Revelations on the Isle of Patmos. On the lower right there is a secular image of the cherry picker, derived from a print of La Cuillette des Cerises, a painting by François Boucher (1703-1770). The central unfinished tree at the bottom may have been intended to portray a tree of life, as was typical in biblical samplers. The wide top band features romantic pictorial motifs: two women offering a gift to a single man; a couple holding hands facing outward. The central wide band is a carefully organized rhythmic composition of identical trees and flowers on either side of the two-bay red brick house. The top narrow band is unfinished, as Ann’s inscription does not include her age or the date she completed her sampler. The band below that is empty, perhaps intended to hold a verse or further inscription.
The Met’s sampler collection also includes an earlier New York City biblical sampler by Sarah Lawrence dating to 1758 (1999.271). As is typical of the eighteenth-century biblical samplers, Sarah illustrates only bible stories considered significant to one of the core beliefs of the Reformed Protestant churches to which the girls who made these samplers belonged. The central teaching of the Reformed churches was that there should be an unmediated relationship between God and man; this direct relationship was illustrated on her sampler by images such as Moses receiving the Ten Commandments, and Eve being created from Adam’s rib.
The long-lived New York biblical sampler style must have been taught by several still unidentified teachers, and the schools where they taught are yet to be discovered. For the most part, the girls who made these samplers were the daughters of quite well-to-do Reformed Protestant families, although from different cultural backgrounds.
Ann Yates’s parents, Joseph Yates (1759-1828) and Magdalen Many (1753-1806) were married in 1785 at the German Reformed Church of New York; and Ann, born on April 6, 1790, was baptized at Trinity Church in Manhattan on May 23, 1790. Ann had an older sister and brother, Catherine Martha (1785-1860) and Benjamin (b. 1787). After her mother’s death in 1806, Ann’s father remarried and a half-sister, Sarah, was born June 30, 1810. While Ann’s adult life remains unknown, her carefully stitched work helps to document the decorative evolution of this important group of New York City samplers.
Artwork Details
- Title: Sampler
- Artist: Ann Magdalen Yates (American, born 1790)
- Date: ca. 1802
- Geography: Made in New York, New York, United States
- Medium: Silk embroidery on linen
- Dimensions: 15 3/4 × 18 1/2 in. (40 × 47 cm)
Framed: 20 1/4 × 22 3/4 in. (51.4 × 57.8 cm) - Credit Line: Friends of the American Wing Fund, 2015
- Object Number: 2015.709
- Curatorial Department: The American Wing
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Multiple artists/makers
1883–87
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1883–1900
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ca. 1803
Herter Brothers
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Louis C. Tiffany
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