Sampler

Period1847

MediumPlied wool thread on cotton canvas

Dimensions17 × 22.25 in. (43.2 × 56.5 cm)

Signed"Caroline Tiel Durell / Work Done in the / 13th year of her age 18--" is cross stitched in the center of the sampler.

ClassificationsNeedlework

Credit LineBequest of Catherine T. Naylor, 1961

Object number1975.544

DescriptionBrightly colored plied wool yarns are worked on a sturdy cotton canvas ground in shades of brick red, rose, pale pink, olive, sage, forest green, light turquoise, dark blue, soft white, tan, and brown. Along the top of the rectangular sampler is embroidered "BORDENTOWN SCHOOL." Below, in a small strawberry vine bordered rectangle is the inscription "Caroline Tiel Durell / Work Done in the / 13th year of her age 18-- / Guard well your thoughts, our / thoughts are heard in heaven." Bold single motifs surrounding the inscription panel include a rooster, a large full-blown rose, a pair of parrots, a morning glory, a solitary parrot, and several small floral sprays. A wavy strawberry vine borders all four edges. All the embroidery is done in cross stitch.
Curatorial RemarksIn reading the sampler's inscription, it is interesting to note that the last two digits of its year of completion have been picked out. It is a gentle indication of minor vanity on the part of some sampler makers. As adults, women were proud to display their girlish needlework accomplishments but did not necessarily wish guests to learn their ages. More than a few women carefully unpicked part of the completion date, preventing visitors from figuring out how old they were. Caroline repeated this in the 1910 federal census, giving her age as 65 and shaving a full decade off her true date of birth. Caroline Tiel Durell's sampler marks a profound change in sampler making by the mid- to late 1840s. The use of brightly colored wool yarns, tinted with newly introduced chemical-based dyes, became wildly popular for tapestry work, samplers, and all kinds of decorative household embroidery. Caroline's sampler, with its bright colors and bold design elements, differs markedly from her sister Lydia Ann's sampler, also produced at at the Bordentown School in 1840, six years earlier. For information on Lydia Ann Durell's sampler, please see accession number 1975.545. NotesSampler maker Caroline Tiel Durell was born in 1834 to Jonathan Durell (1803 - 1859) and Ann N. Sager (d. 1875) of Bordentown, Burlington County, New Jersey. Caroline was the youngest of the couple's three children. Caroline and her older sister, Lydia Ann (1827 - 1911), attended the Bordentown School, where they received needlework instruction. The 1860 census briefly noted a family tragedy. In June of 1859, Caroline and Lydia Ann's father died of strangulation at the age of 56. The circumstances of his death were not provided. Caroline, whose nickname was "Caddy," never married. She and her sister Lydia Ann, who also remained single, lived together for more than thirty years on Farnsworth Street in Bordentown. Both sisters died in 1911 - Caroline at the age of seventy-seven, and Lydia Ann at the age of eighty-four. They were interred with their parents and brother John S. Durell (1831 - 1886) in the Bordentown Cemetery.

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