The rest of the imagery is standard British patriotic fare, crest and crown and beefeaters and floral emblems etc. This one looks frayed, and having handled one of these, the background fabric is not a small count fabric, but a comparatively loose weave. I wonder if it was sold as a pre-printed piece, rather than a transfer? One of the notable differences between embroidered samplers and cross stitch ones is that embroidery offers more freedom in stitch choice and placement, as well as colour variation. The four examples of this sampler shown here illustrate this nicely. Even though it's a pattern, it's not being treated as a straitjacket.
This was auctioned in 2008 with a lot of mostly 19th century samplers with a starting price of 150GBP - hard to determine the value of this alone. It was described as being in good condition.
Read more: http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/5909533
Here are three other examples of this sampler:
I have two of these samplers Ruth, I bought them on ebay a few years ago and the second one was such A bargain I couldn't resist. One has the name Mary E Pope and the other Dorothy Sheppard. On ebay they were said to have been advertised in a Girl Guide magazine and came ready to embroider. Both my samplers have frayed edges as I don't think the fabric was very generous. I have a third one only part embroidered. Don't think they've been on my blog yet. Sylvia
ReplyDeleteRE:Elizabeth II: coronation sampler (with stitcher's name)
ReplyDeleteI work in a shop that sells embroidery threads and today a lady brought in this sampler that she had started when she was young and wanted to finish now. It did look to me that it had been pre printed on the fabric, and the lady had the original pages from the Girl magazine that it appeared in. Jayne