Rare Needlework Sampler, Elizabeth Drew (b. 1810), Plymouth, Massachusetts, 1824-1825

Worked with silk threads and silk floss with paint, ink and paper on linen in split, four-sided, seed, eyelet, satin, straight and cross-stitches with French knots. Inscribed: Jesus permit thy gracious name to stand as the first efforts of an infants hand/And while her fingers oer this canvass move Engage her tender heart to seek thy/love With thy dear children let her share aparte And write thy name thyself upon/her heart Inscription on memorials: Sacred to the memory/of/Charles Drew/Born January 11th 1821/Died December 2th 1821/Sacred to the memory/of/Charles S. Drew/Born September 30 1824/Died February 20 1825 Wrought by Elizabeth Drew Aged 13 AD 1824. Retains original frame and wood backing. 16 1/2 x 17 1/2 inches. (26 threads to the inch).

Skinner's Auction 788, lot 215, January 8, 1982

Somewhat darkened.
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. 60, fig. 19

Elizabeth Drew's schoolmistress, yet to be identified, must be recognized as one of the most accomplished and talented of teachers, for this memorial sampler is a masterpiece. Fishing boats ride the painted waters of Plymouth Bay; the cove is ringed with trees embellished with aqua-tinted silken leaves. Poplars, four in a row, and paper epitaphs with delicate inscriptions lend perceptible depth to the landscape, the foreground of which has been worked in silvery blue silk that shifts and glows in the light. An outstanding artist, Elizabeth's teacher guided her students to new aesthetic and technical levels. There are few American schoolgirl samplers combining the use of paint, stitches, ink, and paper on linen, and none so successfully as those executed under the instruction of this anonymous Plymouth schoolteacher.¹ Samplers from Plymouth worked in this exceptionally stylish manner appear to have been created between 1813 and 1845. The earliest dated example is an 1813 sampler worked by Sarah Sturtevant.² In 1819 Betsey C. Battles stitched a needlework picture across the bottom of her embroidery that anticipated the elegant, painted style favored during the next decade.³ Lucy Wadsworth's sampler (fig. 20), 1831, may have been worked under the same teacher, for comparison with Elizabeth's sampler reveals many similarities. The charming painted landscape has been omitted from the Wadsworth sampler. ⁴ Each of these Plymouth pictorial embroideries exhibits an instantly recognizable format: a deep border embellished with full blossomed China roses, twisting stems and leaves, buds, and small pansies. A distinctive inner border with canted corners encloses the verse and alphabet forms, which have been divided by thin rows of wavy vines and flowers. The samplers, almost invariably, combine both stitchery and paint. Mary M. Davidson, in Plimoth Colony Samplers, describes the method of execution: "The alphabets, numbers and verses and signature were worked by counting threads. When this was finished the whole sampler was backed with a piece of soft cotton and the rest of the design was worked through both fabrics, following a drawn design."⁵ In contrast, most American samplers are worked through homespun, with no backing or fabric added. Elizabeth Drew's sampler is typical of the Plymouth school. Her embroidery is backed with a cotton fabric of medium weight with many of the heavily embroidered areas piercing through both textiles. The paint, apparently of an oil base, has been brushed on the linen with a fine, sure hand. Placement of the paint over some areas of stitchery implies the needlework was essentially completed before the brush was applied to the elaborate pictorial scene. This technique may be detected not only in the vivid indigo covering the willow trees but in the rust brown brush strokes found within the field of the border. There is evidence, however, that a final stitching was added after the painting to highlight the tree branches with leaves of aqua silk. When studying these spectacular embroideries, we must pay homage to this unusual teacher. She was a dedicated, inventive painter-although probably not formally trained-who designed the pictures and painted the embellishments onto the beautiful samplers worked under her expert tutelage. Without question these scenes are too recognizable, too identical in execution, to doubt that the teacher was also the artist. No group of children, ranging in age from eight to fifteen years, could possibly duplicate her very sophisticated style of painting with such exact shading and such precise accuracy. There is but one vital clue to her identity: she was either a member of the Friends, or, as a child, was instructed in a Quaker school, for many of the samplers ascribed to her school reveal two distinctly Quaker needlework characteristics: the boxy alphabet forms and the chain of ligatures worked across the extreme top of the canted cartouche. Ligatures--characters consisting of two or more letters united in the manner of printing type-appear on at least five of the known existing needlework samplers completed in Plymouth between 1813 and 1825.⁶ Some samplers dating from the third decade of the nineteenth century, such as those worked by Sarah Stephens Lapham and Lucy Wadsworth (fig. 20), display neither an alphabet nor ligatures but in format appear to have been worked under the same supervision.⁷ Elizabeth Drew's sampler is an' embroidered mourning sampler worked on linen, an uncommon form of schoolgirl art. The subject may have been recommended to her teacher by her parents after the death of her infant brothers. Fragile paper epitaphs have been inscribed with ink in meticulous calligraphic lettering, still legible after more than 150 years. Applied to the sampler with fine black stitches, the paper has been pierced with blue silk stitched leaves of the willow trees. Elizabeth probably began her needlework before the summer of 1824, while she was still thirteen, completing it after February of 1825, the date of her second infant brother's death. School terms were often determined by the individual teacher and thus rather irregular. Elizabeth's attendance at her academy may well have been inconsistent and unmonitored, for, as we have learned, schooling for young girls was not generally considered of primary importance. Born August 13, 1810, one of twelve children, Elizabeth Drew was the daughter of William Drew, Jr., and Sarah Holmes, who married in Plymouth in 1804.⁸ In 1835, Elizabeth Drew and Isaac W. Proctor, a trader from Framingham, Middlesex County, were married. They had three children before Isaac's death in 1848.⁹ Ten years later, Elizabeth married Thomas A. Walker, a United States land officer from Des Moines, Iowa.¹⁰

 

 

 1. Mary M. Davidson, Plimoth Colony Samplers, (Marion, MA: The Channings, 1975), 34, 35, 40. Davidson theorizes that Maria de Verdier Turner, the European wife of Capt. Lothrop Turner of Plymouth, was the accomplished teacher who designed and guided many a young Plymouth girl in the art of embroidery. Maria Turner, however, left Plymouth for Boston after the death of her husband in 1824. Elizabeth Drew's sampler alone, bearing the dates of 1824 and 1825, would seem to refute this theory. Samplers showing the same technique and design format continued to be worked in Plymouth into the 1840s (Ring, American Needlework Treasures, 14, 15). Until additional documentation surfaces, it seems doubtful that Maria Turner wasthis Plymouth schoolmistress. 

2. The Sturtevant sampler is in a private collection; see Davidson, Plimoth COIOllY Samplers, 35, 37. 

3. The Battles sampler, 1816 (private collection; see Skinner catalogue, Bolton Gallery, Bolton, MA, Fille Americalla, 1146, March 21, 1987, lot 46), may be the only Plymouth sampler of this group yet to surface that displays a distinctive oval format rather than the familiar octagonal-shaped cartouche. All the other characteristics are present, such as ligatures, boxy alphabet forms, elaborate borders, and painted tableaux.

 4. Another sampler of Plymouth origin related to this body of work is that worked by Susan Stephens Lapham, 1832 (collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA; see Sarah B. Sherrill, "Current and Coming," Alltiques, April 1979: 672). See also Ring, Ameriran Needlework Treasures, 14, 15. The samplers illustrated were worked by l\larcia A. Harlow, 1822 (collection, Betty Ring); l\lary A. Bradford, 1833 (collection, Betty Ring); and Betsy R. Churchill, 1835 (collection, Betty Ring). 

5. Davidson, Plimoth COIOllY Samplers, 34. 

6. Ring, Americall Needlf!'ll!'ork Treasures, 14, and Ring, "Samplers and Pictorial Needlework," 1425, 1426. See also Davidson, Plimoth Colony Samplers, 39. Samplers displaying ligatures and bold alphabets are: Sarah Sturtevant, 1813 (private collection); Betsey C. Battles, 1819 (private collection); Marcia Harlow, 1822 (collection, Betty Ring); Nancy Holmes, 1823 (private collection); and Elizabeth Drew, 1824-25 (illustrated here). 

7. The Lapham sampler is in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA; see Sherrill, "Current and Coming," 672.

8. 11ltematiollal Ge1lealogicalllldex. See also Vital Records of Plymouth, Massachusetts, vol. 2: 60. 

9. Thomas W. Baldwin, Vital Records of Framingham, Massachusetts (Boston, l\IA, 1911),270. See also Federal Census, Framillgham; /l1.assachusetts, Index to Births in Massachusetts, 1841-1850, vol. 5: 40, and Death Records, Framingham (Family Record Archives, Family History Library of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Salt Lake City, UT, microfilm). 

10. Marriage Records, Plymouth (Public Library of Plymouth, MA, microfilm). Thanks to the kind assistance of Jean Medeiros of the Reference Department.