Sampler

Maker Lucy Burtis

Period1823

Place MadeNew Jersey, United States

MediumSilk and linen

DimensionsFramed: 23 × 25.5 in. (58.4 × 64.8 cm)

ClassificationsNeedlework

Credit LineGift of Mary Dawley Herberich, 2019

Object number2019.15.1

DescriptionA large rectangular sampler worked in silk thread on a natural linen ground. The sampler features central image of a house, with large windows, a central door, and broad stone steps. The house is flanked by narrow vines. In front of the house, a broad green lawn worked in glossy raveled silk, is populated by a variety of creatures, including birds, sheep, and miniscule dogs, amidst tiny flowers and floral urns. Two curving streams, also worked in raveled silk, can be seen on either corner of the lawn. A number of individual floral elements are worked throughout the linen panel. Along the top of the sampler is the central inscription "Lucy Burtiss. Work done / at Bennington School in / the 10th year of her age" and the verse "Good is the lord our king / Who makes the earth his care / Visits the pasture every spring / And bids the grass appear" on the left, "Arise and serve the lord of light / Who is beautiful to behold / Thou shalt be cloth'd; in robes of White / and deck'd in chains of gold" at right. The initials of the Burtiss family are worked in dark brown thread and are grouped vertically. The initials "AG," "EG," "MT," "ET," "DTB," "MB," and "MB" run down the left side, while the intials "EAB," "AGB," "MSB," "WTB," and "AMB" run along the right side. Lucy's own initials "LB" appear alone to the upper right of the house, while the initials "WB" are worked just below the portion of verse embroidered to the right of the signature. A stylized floral border runs along all four edges of the panel, with a narrow triangle band forming an inner border.
Curatorial RemarksLucy Burtis's elegant needlework sampler is one of at least six samplers identified as having been done under the instruction of Mary G. Taylor. Mary Taylor (4 December 1793 - 1 June 1864) was one of seven children of Courtland (1767 - 1811) and Isabella Taylor (b. 1771) of Chesterfield Township. Mary married Samuel Allen (1795 - 1879) on 6 October 1831 at the age of 37. The couple had four daughters, only one of whom reached adulthood. Mary was interred at the Colestown Cemetery in Camden County. During her teaching career, Taylor apparently taught at more than one school. While teaching at the Bennington School in Burlington County, she was also running or teaching at a small one-story school in Monmouth County from 1820 to about 1828 (See Franklin Ellis, History of Monmouth County). A sampler by Mary Taylor herself, completed when she was 19 and dated 1812, survives and includes many of the identical elements seen in samplers produced by her students (collection of Saralyn and Howard Hampton Smith, Jr.). In addition to Lucy Burtis's sampler of 1823, five other samplers produced under the watchful eye of Mary G. Taylor are known: one by Catharine Louisa Cornell dated 1820, Sarah West's sampler of 1824 (Burlington County Historical Society), Mary Anderson's sampler completed in the same year (collection of Daniel C. Scheid), a sampler dated 1829 by Amy K. Burtis, very likely a cousin of Lucy Burtis (New Jersey State Museum), and Sarah Ann Emley's sampler of 1830 (collection of Leslie B. Durst). With some exceptions, these samplers contain identical elements and imagery, including the terraced lawn densely populated with animals, birds, and flowers.NotesThis accomplished and well-executed sampler was created by ten-year-old Lucy Burtis. Born in 1813 in Monmouth County, New Jersey, Lucy was the daughter of William Burtis (1771 - 1858) and his second wife Lucy Tilton (1783 - 1859). William had three children by his first wife, Miriam Shinn (1774 - 1804) when he married Lucy Tilton in 1804. Lucy included the initials of fourteen family members, including her parents, her maternal grandparents Abraham and Elizabeth Tilton, aunts Mary and Elizabeth Tilton, half sister Miriam, and siblings Maria, William, Abraham, Eliza, and David. Two sets of initials, "MEB" and "AMB" have not yet been identified. Lucy grew up in Burlington County and attended the Bennington School, where she produced this magnificent sampler. She later married Daniel Wood Ridgeway (sometimes spelled Ridgway) (1812 - 1895) in 1839. The couple apparently had only one child, a son named Daniel Wood Ridgeway (1846 - 1931). Lucy Burtis Ridgway died on 11 December 1892 in Chesterfield, Burlington County New Jersey, and was interred in the Jacobstown Baptist Church Cemetery.

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