Sampler

Maker Elizabeth Assgood

Period1664

MediumPlied silk thread on linen

Dimensions9.75 × 6.63 in. (24.8 × 16.8 cm)

SignedBelow the verse is the maker's name and date, "Elizabeth Assgood 1664."

ClassificationsNeedlework

Credit LineGift of Mrs. Julia Hartshorne Trask, 1946

Object number2084.45

DescriptionThis small but masterful rectangular sampler is worked with plied, brightly colored silk threads in shades of green, blue, pink, brown, off-white, and red on a closely woven linen ground. The upper half of the sampler features a mirror image pattern centered around a large four-lobed flower in shades of pink, worked in trellis stitch and outlined in couching. On either side are acorns and floral and foliate elements worked in a variety of stitches including cross, satin, padded satin, running, laid filling, picot, and trellis. Two dark green cross stitch zig zag vines with red and pink strawberries are worked above and below the central pattern. On the bottom half of the sampler, the verse "Let Title Bee the name e / truth This Is The practic / OF my Youth With Care / And cost This have I wrou / ght And Finished with A / Virgins Thought." The maker placed the "e" of "practice" at the end of the verse's first line, immediately above "practic" on the second line, unable to squeeze in the word's final letter. After the last word "Thought" of the verse, there is considerable plain linen, with a small 1/2 inch cross stitched line, appearing as though the original plans for this space were either abandoned or unfinished. Below the verse is the maker's name and date "Elizabeth Assgood 1664." Narrow blue cross stitch lines separate the lines of the verse and inscription. The linen ground includes a narrow hem on the left, top and right sides, while the bottom edge of the linen was left raw and appears to originally have been folded under the sampler's support frame.
Curatorial RemarksElizabeth Assgood created her needlework during what is considered to be the Golden Age of English sampler making. Up into the seventeenth century, girls completed long, narrow embroideries known as band samplers, kept unframed and rolled up, to serve as a visual dictionary or memory aid in recreating various stitches on clothing and household linens. By the time Elizabeth threaded her needle in 1664, samplers had transformed into more decorative pieces, framed and displayed to show a young woman's education, creativity, and patience.NotesElizabeth Assgood's small but beautifully worked sampler is a fine example of English embroidery tradition. Like many seventeenth-century sampler makers, Elizabeth included a variety of relatively complex stitches in a closely-worked space, leaving very little linen ground unembroidered. Although Elizabeth Assgood has not been identified, she may have lived in or around Canturbury, in Kent, England, where families with that name, spelled variously as "Assgood," "Asgood," and "Askwood," were located.

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