TRADITIONAL EMBROIDERED SAMPLERS III: HORSE HILL HOUSE SAMPLER

Image copyright Victoria and Albert Museum

By the mid nineteenth century samplers were wider and shorter than the earlier examples I've been showing; rather than being rolled up and kept as references for the embroiderer, they were taking on the proportions of a picture, and were often framed for hanging on the wall.

Stylized borders (in this example there are two different borders) often surrounded a religious text, alphabets and numbers, and carefully placed decorative motifs. This sampler has a small text at the very top, which seems to have been given an insignificant place in the whole; the main part of the ground displays perfectly balanced motifs of flowers, flowering trees, birds, two baskets of fruit, two dogs and two squirrels. But the centre is taken up by what may have been the home of the embroiderer: Horse Hill House near London, a two-storey Georgian style house of red brick with lawns and trees. Below this is a very large flowering tree, and on each side stands a boxer figure wearing brief shorts and facing front.

The sampler is signed Sophia Stephens, and dated June 30 183.... Interestingly, she has omitted her age, perhaps a sign that she didn't want it known!

The ground fabric is wool, the threads are silk, and the stitches are cross and Gobelin stitch. As the sampler has been hemmed and finished with a line of hemstitching on each side, it was probably not meant for framing. This is a particularly beautiful sampler; it seems likely that it was carefully stored, only to be brought out for display on special occasions.