Sampler

Maker Fanny Osborn

Period1805

MediumPlied silk thread on linen

Dimensions10.13 × 10.25 in. (25.7 × 26 cm)

SignedThe sampler is signed and dated "Fanny Osborn / Wrought this / Sampler September the 18th 1805 aged / 9 years."

ClassificationsNeedlework

Credit LineGift of Mrs. Julia Hartshorne Trask, 1946

Object number2084.33

DescriptionA small square sampler on rough brown linen, hemmed on all four sides, worked in plied silk thread in dark green, medium green, dark brown, steel blue, pale pink, pale yellow-green, and soft oyster white. Stitches include cross, Queen, and tent. The silk thread varies wildly in quality, from fine to almost string-like thickness. Embroidered along the top of the sampler is a wide strawberry vine. Below runs a dagged edge band. In the center of the sampler run three rows of alphabets. On the first line is worked a half-inch upper case alphabet from A to S, then T through Z on the next line. A numeral run from 1 to 10 immediately follows. On the third line runs a half-inch lower case aphabet from a through w. The letter "s" is worked twice, once as the old-fashioned long "f," followed by "s." The end of the lower case alphabet, from x to z, followed by an ampersand, is centered below, underlined with a narrow band of steel blue Queen stitching, flanked on either side by a band of stylized floral buds. On the bottom third of the sampler is centered a little house, with a dark brown hipped roof topped by two chimneys, and pairs of windows flanking the central door. To the left of house is embroidered "Fanny Osborn / Sampler September / 9 years," above a large stylized dianthus enclosed by a scalloped single cross stitch band in white along the left, top, and right sides. To the right of the house is worked "Wrought this / the 18th 1805 aged," above a large stylized pale pink tulip, also enclosed by a scalloped single cross stitch band along left, top, and right sides. A narrow border of offset single cross stitch, forming almost a checkerboard appearance, runs along all four edges of the sampler.
Curatorial RemarksNine year old Fanny Osborn, a probably resident of Weston, Fairfield County, Connecticut, completed her simple yet well stitched marking sampler in mid September of 1805. Settled in 1671, Weston was an agricultural community. Nearby creeks and rivers provided power for cider, grist, lumber, and fulling mills. Several important educational academies operated at the time in Connecticut. They offered needlework education in addition to regular courses of study. Fanny most likely attended a local day school, learning her stitches there. The simple design motifs, linen quality, and wildly varying quality of the silk threads may indicate a local, relatively rural educational institution. In the late 1980s, Fanny Osborn's sampler was graphed and offered as a cross stitch pattern by a small needlework company known as Schoolroom Samplings based in Gladstone, New Jersey.NotesThe nine year old girl who worked this sampler in 1805 may be a Fanny Osborn who was born at Weston, Fairfield County, Connecticut, on 12 February 1796. She was a daughter of Jeremiah Osborne (b. 1783) and Anna Sherwood. Fanny married on 27 May 1817 to Samuel Robbins (1784 - 1860). The couple lived at several locations in upstate New York, before ending up in Penn Yan in the Finger Lakes region. She died on 18 October 1893 at Greenfield, Massachusetts, at the age of ninety-seven. Her remains were brought back to New York and interred next to her husband in Lakeview Cemetery, Penn Yan.

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