Rare Needlework Sampler, Polly Phippen (1770-1812) at Sarah Fiske Stivours School, Salem, Massachusetts, Dated 1783

Worked in silk and twisted silk threads with crinkled silk floss on linen in bullion, satin, couched and uncouched satin, outline, eyelet, and cross-stitches with French knots, and hem-stitching. Inscribed: NO TIS IN VAIN TO SEEK FOR/BLISS FOR BLISS CAN NEER BE/FOUND TILL WE ARRIVE WHERE/JESUS IS AND TREAD ON HEAVNLY/GROUND. THERES NOTHING/ROUND THESE PAINTED SKIES NOR/ROUND THE DUSTY CLOD NOTHING/MY SOUL THAT WORTH THY JOY/OR LOVELY AS THY GOD Polly Phippen/HER SAMPLER. 17/WROUGHT 1783. IN/THE 14.YEAR.OF/HER AGE. 21 by 21 inches, (22 threads to the inch).

Stephen Score Antiques, Essex, Massachusetts, November, 1983.

Somewhat darkened and with some fading.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Exhibited and Literature: LACMA, p. 30, fig. 3

In the well-established, affluent communities of post-Revolutionary New England, samplers gradually became larger and more sumptuous than their British counterparts, displaying an extravagant use of material. Often highly pictorial and bordered with an impressive frame of needlework patterns, these schoolgirl embroideries no longer emphasized the modest alphabet seen so often during the early years of the eighteenth century.  Toward the end of the eighteenth century, as a consequence of trade with China, samplers worked under the supervision of schoolmistresses in the vicinity of Essex County, Massachusetts, were lavishly embellished with an unusual type of crinkled silk floss (see left). These precious skeins of silk were cautiously unraveled into manageable strands and then worked in long, uncouched stitches over the entire unembroidered portion of the border, framing the samplers with brilliant colors and a thick, lustrous sheen. This technique became an established tradition in the vicinity of Salem.¹ Polly Phippen worked her splendid sampler in 1783 at the school kept by Sarah Fiske Stivours of Salem. As with most female teachers in the colonies, Sarah Stivours is not recorded in the history of this early Massachusetts settlement, although at least fifteen samplers have been attributed to her instruction.² While little is known about her school, it remains one of the earliest regional schools for young women yet to be recognized in this country because of a number of embroidered samplers bearing her name. A comparison of embroideries known to have been  worked under her supervision allows us to identify others by similarity  of style, technique, and specific patterns stitched upon the  linen ground.³  Often distinguished by a wide border edged with hem-stitching  and sawtooth ribs, the samplers believed to be the product of  her tutelage reflect more than one style. The first and most commonly  recognized format appears on the sampler worked by Polly  Phippen (fig. 3), while another more pictorial variation may be  seen on the example stitched by Naby Dane in Salem in 1789  (fig. 4). The Phippen sampler employs long, diagonally worked stitches of white, blue, and berry in two wide bands, one along the top and another representing the sky across the bottom layer.  Her stiff figures, puffy birds, and animals are of crinkled silk floss, and the characteristic flower-strewn border includes clusters of detached stems of small, round cherries worked in eyelet stitches.  A delicate arbor placed near the top of both samplers is a favored motif of the Stivours School. In some instances, samplers  depict distinctively shaped urns, complete with bouquets tied  with thin ribbon bows, placed diagonally in each of the corners.⁴  The sampler worked by Naby Dane in 1789 is more pictorial in design. Black inked lines drawn as a guide for the samplermaker are still noticeable in the border that is a perfect duplicate of the one worked on the Phippen sampler. Long satin stitches of crinkled floss have been used to depict the domed building and the elaborately costumed figures. The sky, portrayed more naturally here in scallops of blue and white silk, the wide sawtooth edges, the arbor of floral sprays, and the cherry twigs assure us that Naby unquestionably stitched this sampler in the school of the accomplished Sarah Stivours.    

POLLY PHIPPEN   The daughter of Joshua Phippen and Hannah Sibley Phippen,  Polly was baptised Hannah-or, perhaps, Hannah Mary Phippen,  on June 3, 1770.⁵ In 1782, her father, an orphan who became  a successful merchant, built a three-story mansion on  Hardy Street in Salem that still stands today (see above). He was considered a kind, generous man who "daily had seated at his table between twenty and twenty-five persons."⁶ After the death of his wife in 1801, Joshua married Ursula Symonds, widow of Jonathan Symonds, who for over thirty years kept a school for girls in her home in North Salem.⁷ Polly married Captain Benjamin Babbidge (b. 1768) in 1793.  They had two children. His grandmother, Susanna Beckett Babbidge, kept a school for girls in Salem from 1750 to 1800, where “she taught reading and sewing for domestic purposes." His aunt, Lydia Babbidge, daughter of Susanna, also offered classes of “higher school for young Misses only."⁸ After twenty years of marriage, the Babbidge family experienced grave financial losses. Master of the brig Nancy, Benjamin was lost at sea in 1811. Polly Phippen Babbidge died in March 1812 of "distress of mind ended in consumption." She was forty-one years old.⁹   

 

1. Ring, American Needlework Treasures, 8.   

2. Krueger, New England Samplers, 178. See also  Ring, "Legacy of Samplers," 41.   

3. Ring, American Needlework Treasures, 9.  

4. Ethel Stanwood Bolton and Eva Johnston Coe, American Samplers (Boston, MA: Massachusetts Society of the Colonial Dames of America, 1921), opp.  129,166. The samplers worked by Lydia Stocker, 1798, and Content Phillips are now being attributed to Sarah Stivours's school. See also Ring, American  Needlework Treasures, 9. The location of the Stocker sampler is unknown; see Bolton and Coe, American Samplers, opp. 129. The Phillips sampler is in the collection of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum of Design  (Smithsonian Institution), New York, NY.   

5. Vital Records of Salem, Massachusetts, to the End of the Year 1849, vol. 1 (Salem, MA: Essex Institute, 1916), 166. See also Sidney Perley, The History of Salem, Massachusetts, vol. 2 (Salem, MA: published by the author, 1926), 329.  

6. George D. Phippen, A Genealogy and History of the Descendants of David Phippen also Fitzpen (Salem, MA, Essex Institute Historical Collections, 1848), 183-192.   

7. Phippen, Genealogy and History, 189.  

8. Perley, History of Salem, vol. 2: 314, 315. See also Vital Records of Salem, vols. 1: 58 and 4: 190. The school kept by Susanna Babbidge and her daughter, Lydia Babbidge, is discussed in Krueger's New England Samplers, 177, 178.  

9. The Diary of William Bentley, D.D., vol. 18 (Salem, MA, Essex Institute Historical Collections, 1881), 217.