Description:
Needlework sampler done in silk and silk floss embroidery on a unbleached linen ground in the original molded, gilt farme, which has the inscription, "Temperance Clarke / Sampler Worked in her / 12th year 1816 / The needle work of mine can tell / In my youth was learned well / And by my parents also thaught / Not to spend my time to / naught" in a reserve over the verse, "Again the Silent wheels of time / Their annual round have driven / And yon tho scarce in maiden prime / Are so much nearer heaven." This verse is taken from the 1787 Robert Burns poem “To Miss Logan, with Beattie’s Poems, For A New-Year's Gift.” Temperance Clark (1805-1867) was the daughter of Justus Clark (1757-1851) who was born in Sunderland, Massachusetts, and Temperance Pomeroy Clark (1761-1807) who married in 1787 in Northampton. It is difficult to pinpoint the school where Clark worked her piece, although a growing body of similarly-wrought work suggests a Northampton-area school or instructor. Clark’s family clearly had the resources to pay for their daughter’s education, as is evidenced by the additional cost incurred with the inclusion of silk floats filling in the entire background. In 1827, Temperance married a distant cousin, Charles Clark (1804-1889), the son of Luther Clark (1767-1796) and Lucy Allen Clark of Northampton who married in 1796. By 1850, Charles and Temperance were living in Brooklyn, New York, where Charles was a stock broker. This sampler is one of a small group of samplers known to have been worked in the Northampton area in the early years of the 19th century. They are characterized by the long stitches formed of crinkled silk filling the entire background. Motifs include baskets with fruit, various birds and an alphabet; and a border of stylized rosebuds. The sampler has five rows of the alphabet and the numbers 1-15 separated by a variety of decorative designs; three fruit and flower baskets, two of which have two birds perched on the top; two small dogs; and three-sided decorative border of stylized flowers. An unique characteristic of this sampler is its linen background, which is entirely embridered in floating silk stitches. A similar embroidered background is seen in a family register pictured of Betty Ring's "Girlhood Embroidery" (fig. 79) made around 1825 by Susan Garfield from the Middlesex County, Masachusetts, area, and in the sampler made in 1805 by Bathsheba Copeland (1796-1842) of Northampton pictured in Mary Jane Edmonds' "Samplers & Samplermakers" (#15); and Historic Northampton has a similar sampler (68.446) made in 1803 by by Emily Parson (1794-1859). Another similar example dated 1804 is pictured on page 38 of Carol and Stephen Huber's book of Connecitcut River Valley embroidery (plate 16), wrought by Wealthy Griswlold (b. 1795) of Windsor, Connecticut. Historic Deerfield owns a needlework family register (90.006) made in 1807 by Sally O. Wells of Hatfield, which also has a background filled in with long vertical floats of crinkled silk floss.
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2007.30 |
