This sampler features a monument, rendered in perspective, flanked by two small trees and a flowering plant. On the top of the sampler is the inscription:
“So fadef[s] the
lovely blooming
flower
Cut of in lifef[s]
erlief[s]t hour.”
On the monument is the inscription:
“In Memory
of
Sarah Pervier
who died 16th
of April 1826
aged 8 monthf[s]”
The monument represents death and Lydia’s inscription on the top comes from two different sources. The first line is by Anne Steele (1716-1778) from a poem entitled “On the Death of a Child” and the second line is from a hymn that is part of the Catholic liturgy for the feast of Holy Innocents (December 28). The sampler is stitched with silk and cotton embroidery thread on a linen ground with a thread count of warp 44, weft 44/ in. The stitches used are cross, satin, chain, and detached chain.
Nothing is known about the life of Lydia Marden.
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