Rare Needlework Sampler, Bathesheba Copeland (1796-1842), Northampton, Massachusetts, Dated 1805

Worked in silk threads and crinkled silk floss on linen, with satin, couched satin, split, outline and cross-stitches. Inscribed: Then o divine benevolence be nigh/O teach me how to live & how to die Bathsheba/Copeland aged 9. 13 by 13 1/4  inches. (26 threads to the inch).

See catalogue note at sothebys.com

Grace and Elliott Snyder, Fall Antiques Show at the Pier, October, 1984

With several empty spots in middle and lower portion.
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, pp. 55-56, fig. 15

Bathsheba Copeland's elegant sampler is as lustrous as a length of woven brocade. An exquisite sense of symmetry, achieved through placement, form, and variation of stitch, has been focused around a pictorial cartouche adorned with dainty scallops and ribbon bows. Framed by large vases of cross-stitched flowers, paired birds, pine trees, and familiar geometric shapes, the figure within the setting is balanced by a four-storied building, which may depict the school or academy where this inspired design was born. The shimmering background has been achieved by long, floating, ivory-colored stitches of floss, which cover the unembroidered linen. This uncomplicated sewing technique was one that could be quickly mastered yet appears to have been seldom used by teachers of sampler stitchery. While some samplers have been found to be solidly embroidered with cross-stitches, such as that worked by Martha Avery (fig. 10), others made only occasional use of tent or satin stitches. Few, however, are known to be so fully embroidered with lengthy, uncouched silk floss and with such dramatic results as this one-with the possible exception of the sampler worked by Louisa Plympton of Sudbury, Massachusetts (fig. 21). In 1803, Emily Parsons of Northampton, Massachusetts,^l worked a sampler identical to this one, portraying the same proper young woman wearing a bonnet within an oval setting. The ground of Emily's sampler has been worked in the same long reaching, satin-stitch technique. Such evidence gives rise to the assumption that an as yet unidentified school existed in the vicinity of Northampton from at least 1803 to 1805. The shining image projected by these splendid pictorial samplers echoes the skillfully worked silk embroideries so popular in girls' academies of the Connecticut River Valley during the same period.² Smith Copeland of Canterbury, Connecticut, and Polly Wetherbee were married in Boston by the Reverend Joseph Eckley on June 4, 1794. In 1800 they made their home in Hampshire County, Massachusetts. After 1823, they are shown to be established in Antwerp, New York, where Copeland worked as a shoemaker and innkeeper.³ Bathsheba Copeland, the oldest of their six children, was born in Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1796 and worked her sampler in 1805, the year she was nine. She remained unmarried and died in 1842.⁴

 

1. The Parsons sampler (Emily Parsons, 1794-1859), in the collection of the Northampton Historical Society, MA, was brought to my attention by Betty Ring, to whom I am most grateful. Another related sampler, worked by Sarah Wells in 1807 (private collection), has recently surfaced; see Sotheby's, New York, catalogue, Important Americana, 5968, January 24-27, 1990, lot 1397. 

2. Needlework pictures emphasizing an oval central motif are known to have been worked at the school begun in 1804 by Abby Wright in South Hadley, MA (Betty Ring, "Needlework Pictures from Abby Wright's School in South Hadley, Massachusetts," Antiques, September 1986: 483-493.) 

3. Register of Publishments and Marriages in Boston: 1647 to 1799, vol. 1646: 322. See also Alice Richardson Sloane, comp., The Genealogy of the Lawrence Copeland Family of Braintree, Massachusetts (Decorah, IA: Anundsen Publishing Company, 1983),9. See also Massachusetts Census, 1800, compo Laraine Welch, (Accelerated Indexing Systems, 1973),254.

4. Sloane, Genealogy of Lawrence Copeland, 9.