A Fine Needlework Sampler by Jane Deall, New York City, Dated 1768, Together with a second sampler by Jane Deall dated 1765

first sampler worked all over in red, brown, green and rose silk stitches on linen ground. The second sampler by Jane Deall was executed in 1765 when she was six years old. The theme is Biblical, "Learning and the Resurrection." 2 pieces.

Descended in the Deall, Bishop, and Lynde families to the present owners.

This is one of the earliest and best preserved New York Colonial samplers. This type was worked with great consistency between 1746 and 1768, mostly by the daughters of Trinity Church parishioners, although their patterns most likely originated at the French boarding school for girls in New Rochelle. Their distinctive Adam and Eve, the Sower, and Jacob's Ladder continued in modified form on New York samplers well into the 19th Century, and this version of Adam and Eve is now the most enduring regional motif in American sampler embroidery.

The Nicoll family was a prominent family of New Haven, Connecticut. The founder of the Nicoll family was Matthias Nicolls (1626-1687), a noted jurist, who came to America in 1663 and became Provincial Secretary of New York.

Jane Deall was born July 10, 1759 in New York City, and was baptized August 8, 1759 at Trinity Church (in lower Manhattan). Her parents were Samuel Deall and his wife, Elizabeth. Jane married John Nicoll, (who was born in New York City on August 2, 1756), on September 12, 1778 in Bushwick, Kings County, New York (Brooklyn). He was the son of Edward Nicoll and his wife, Agnes Demeyer. Jane died in 1829, John in 1831. Both are buried in the Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven, Connecticut.

For Related Examples: Betty Ring, Girlhood Embroidery: American Samplers and Pictorial Needlework 1650-1850, 1993, vol. II, p. 294-303