Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Mary Bate joins my brood

I met someone online last night -- her name is Mary. Or rather, her name was Mary, and I now own her handwork! I apologize for the quality of the pictures -- I cleaned these up the best I could, but will have to wait to take better pictures when the sampler shows up in the mail. (As always, you should be able to click on the pictures to make them a little bigger.)

An antique coins dealer in Nottingham posted the sampler a few days ago as a "Buy It Now," and I stumbled across it last night. I called Pat at Lakeside Linens right away (she was still at the office dyeing linen). I often will call Pat when I see a sampler I like; she and I have similar taste in antique samplers. She agreed that Mary's sampler was well-worth the price (around $350), considering the date, condition, and quality of the sampler/design. Then she cursed me for having called her, because once I got her looking, I doomed her to spending the rest of her evening browsing through all of the pretty samplers online.

Here is the verse (and this was part of what I really liked about this one):

THE human soul without Education
is like marble in the quary which (shows?)
none of its inherent beauties until
the skill of the Polisher fethes (sic) out
the colours makes the surface shine
and discovers every ornamentel (?)
spot and vein that runs through the
body of it Education after the same
manner when it works upon the mind
draws out to view every latent virtue
and perfection which without such
helps are never able to make their
appearance (squiggly line)
Keep such Company as you may im
prove or that may improve you and
if you or your Companions cannot
make one anothor (sic) better rather leave
than grow worse by them
MARY BATE
Her Work In The Year Of
Our Lord 1796 B Oct 29 83 (Born October 29, 1783.)
Strait School

The sampler is about 12" by 15 3/4", which means the linen is probably very fine (judging by how much stitching is in the piece for something that size.) Pat and I estimate it's between a 40 and 50 count linen, but I'll know more when I receive the sampler. I'll share more of what I discover when the sampler arrives and take better pictures with my fancy new Nikon camera. I just thought I'd share a few (smudgy) pictures of my latest acquisition. What do you think of it?

16 comments:

Chelsea said...

I think it's wonderful! What an interesting message. Can't wait to see your photos of it, muchless your reproduction of it. :) So excited! (BTW, don't you mean she was born 1783? Hehe)

Theresa said...

Thanks for catching that, Chelsea. I fixed the date!

Jennifer Ann Fox said...

LOVE it!

Nancy said...

Lovely purchase! Love the verse!

marly said...

At first I thought Mary Bate was a new kitten added to the brood!! Very different - no alphabet at all - no motifs. Just border and verse. Very nice addition!

Chocolates4Breakfast (Terri Malinovich) said...

Love, love, LOVE the border. Can't wait for your reproduction (please)!

Anonymous said...

Great Verse. Don't think I want to do it on 40 or 50 count, though.

Bertie said...

Lovely sampler, very good price too:))

SharoninStLouis said...

Looks like a winner. I do love the verse -- and hope that it is not all over 1! ;-)!!!

Daniela said...

very beautiful sampler. I absolutely love it.

dxponhs1 said...

I, too, was looking at samplers over the last couple nights. You beat me at this one and I am truly jealous. Great find!

Kielrain said...

oooh, very nice. I can't wait too see more pictures of it.

Mary's Stitchin Time said...

Love the verse. I can see why you were drawn to the sampler!

Unknown said...

Wow, that is gorgeous! You have been very busy with the sampler gathering lately, LOL!

Wendy said...

How stunning - I bet you can't wait for this beauty to be in your hands. I'm looking forwards to seeing your reproduction of this one!

Lynn said...

The verse on this one is incredible. I can't believe the workmanship done by such young fingers!