Sampler
PeriodCirca 1800
Place MadeNew Jersey, U.S.A.
MediumLinen, silk thread
DimensionsFramed: 16 × 12 in. (40.6 × 30.5 cm)
Inscribed"Penelope Creed / Her Work in the / 9 Year of her age" is worked in the central rectangular panel on the sampler.
ClassificationsNeedlework
Credit LineGift of Mary Dawley Herberich, 2019
Object number2019.15.2
DescriptionA relatively narrow sampler on natural unbleached linen worked in cross and satin stitches in plied silk thread in shades of green, rose, ice blue, white, tan, and dark brown. The top third of the sampler features a motto entitled "Virtue," which reads "Virtue's the Chiefeft Beauty of the mind / The nobleft Ormanent of Humankind / Virtues our Safeguard and our guiding Star / That lifts up Reason when our Senfe err." The inscription makes use of the letter "f" in place of "s" in many cases. The sampler maker enclosed her name and age, "Penelope Creed / Her Work in the / 9 Year of her age" in a simple rectangular border. Along the bottom third of the sampler, a garden scene includes two stylized triangular pine trees atop which perch a pair of doves, floral baskets, tiny little grass clumps, and elongated floral vines. An angular strawberry vine runs along the sides and top of the sampler.Curatorial RemarksThis sampler was thought to have been made in about 1800 by Penelope Creed (1789-1876). The sampler's verse, "Virtue's the chiefest beauty of the mind" was a popular sampler choice on both sides of the Atlantic for decades, seen in samplers from the late 18th century through the 1830s. One of the earliest printed sources for this poem, titled "On Virtue," seems to have been John Entick's "The Child's Best Instructor in Spelling and Reading," published in London in 1785.NotesPenelope Creed was born in 1789 in London, England. She was about two years old when her family emigrated to America, settling in or around the Philadelphia area. Penelope Creed married James Dunphy on 24 December 1812 in Philadelphia. After his death, Penelope Creed Dunphy married Fuller Horner (1767-1845) in 1827. Penelope had one daughter, Mary Ann (1816-1891) from her first marriage. Fuller Horner had two children from his own first marriage, son Samuel H. Horner (1810-1872) and daughter Mary (1816-1832). In 1839, Mary Ann married her stepbrother Samuel. The couple settled in Plumstead, Ocean County, New Jersey, and had eight children. Penelope Creed Dunphy Horner died in 1876 and was interred in the Jacobstown Methodist Cemetery in Burlington County, New Jersey. Penelope Creed's sampler is one of four family samplers in the Association's collection. In addition to Penelope's needlework piece, the Association has her daughter Mary Ann Dunphy's sampler done in 1826, and a sampler made by Penelope's stepsister, Mary Horner (1816-1832), in 1828. A fourth sampler in this group was made by Lucy Burtis (1813-1892) in 1823. Mary Ann Dunphy's daughter, Florence Horner, married William Burtis, who inherited the sampler made by his aunt Lucy.
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