Mary Louisa McCully's sampler

Description:

This sampler features a picture of two children, a dog, a parrot, and a butterfly in a garden with a floral border. A dog symbolizes fidelity and watchfulness, a parrot suggests talkativeness, and a butterfly symbolizes immortality. These are appropriate motifs to go with young children. Mary worked her sampler in Patterson, New Jersey. Patterson was home to many textiles mills in 1840 and that may have been the reason her family came to live there. Her pattern was probably a Berlin wool work pattern. In 1820 with the introduction of Berlin wools comes the name Berlin wool work patterns. These patterns were hand painted on graph paper. The sampler is stitched with wool and silk embroidery thread on a cotton canvas ground with a thread count of warp 24, weft 24/in. The stitches used are cross, crosslet.

Mary Louisa McCully was a cousin of Frank H. McCully, in whose memory the sampler was donated to the Smithsonian.

Date Made: 1840

Maker: McCully, Mary Louisa

Location: Currently not on view

Place Made: United States: New Jersey, Paterson

See more items in: Home and Community Life: Textiles, Samplers, Textiles

Exhibition:

Exhibition Location:

Credit Line: Gift of Mrs. Laura J. Wasser, in memory of Frank H. McCully

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Id Number: TE.T08229Catalog Number: T8229Accession Number: 147229

Object Name: embroidery, Berlin woolworksampler

Physical Description: cotton (canvas ground material)wool (thread material)silk (thread material)Measurements: overall: 15 1/4 in x 19 1/2 in; 38.735 cm x 49.53 cm

Guid: http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746a4-9a9e-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa

Record Id: nmah_646291

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