Sampler

Maker Isabel Irving

Period1807

MediumPlied silk thread on linen

Dimensions8.5 × 6 in. (21.6 × 15.2 cm)

SignedThe sampler is embroidered "1807 / ISABEL IRVING / aged 11 YEAR."

ClassificationsNeedlework

Credit LineGift of Mrs. Julia Hartshorne Trask, 1946

Object number2084.37

DescriptionA small rectangular sampler on fine linen, worked in plied silk threads in dark green, medium brown, and tan. The linen panel includes the selvedge edge along the right side and a small hem along the top, left, and bottom edges. The multiplication table is worked within a grid surrounded by a tiny checkerboard pattern outer border, with the heading "MULTIPLICATION TABLE." Below the heading are three small British crown motifs. The table runs from 1 x 1 to 12 x 12. All four corners of the grid include a small feather motif. Below the table is the inscription "1807 / Isabel Irving aged 11 year." Below the inscription and just above the bottom edge is a central stylized tulip spray motif flanked on either side by floral baskets surmounted by perching birds. Staining remains from the sampler's original mounting tacks along all four edges.
Curatorial RemarksAlthough alphabets, verses, and pictorial motifs form the majority of traditional samplers of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, multiplication samplers fall into a sub-category of teaching samplers. These needlework pieces, while certainly affording their young makers plenty of embroidery and stitching practice, were meant more for arithmetical memorization. Embroidered maps as well as three-dimensional terrestrial and celestial globes fall into this category of subject sampler making. By the time young Isabel Irving finished her small sampler, she certainly knew her multiplication table. Once completed, samplers of this nature could also be used either as teaching tools within a classroom or dame school, or by the maker's younger siblings or relatives within the family household. A number of other multiplication samplers are identified as being made in Scotland in the first decades of the nineteenth century.NotesThe name Isabel Irving appears frequently in Scottish genealogical records. Several girls born in Scotland in the mid-1790s spelled their first name as Isabel and Isabella.

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