Rare Needlework Adam and Eve Sampler, Mary (Canney), Boston Area or New Hampshire, Dated 1772

Worked in silk and wool threads with back, double-running, knit, chain, satin, slanted Gobelin, eyelet, straight, split and cross-stitches in silk on a linen ground. Inscribed: Mary [name removed] HER/WORK AGD [number removed]/June.6.1772.  15 by 9 1/2  inches. (28 threads to the inch).

See catalogue note at sothebys.com

Steve and Carol Huber, Old Lyme, Connecticut, August 1990

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, pp. 37-38, fig. 7

Sensitive to political unrest within the colonies, many New England schoolmistresses echoed the defiance of the times by incorporating a new spirit of freedom into their work.  They began designing more imaginative, energetic patterns for their embroidery classes. Having more or less discarded traditional British forms, they experimented with new techniques but, not to be too daring, endowed their artistic patterns with regional characteristics found on local samplers.  This enchanting sampler worked by .Mary Canney in 1772 combines both new and regional design elements. It depicts a delightfully hefty Adam and Eve worked in vertical rows of diagonal stitchery. Present are the familiar apple tree, with globes of russet-  colored fruit, and a stalwart serpent vividly worked in stripes of teal blue and cream. Crowns of royalty, often appearing on colonial stitchery, have been worked on either side of the tree.  During the 1740s and 1750s, countless depictions of Adam and Eve with the serpent and Tree of Knowledge appeared on samplers worked in and around Boston.¹ Rarely out of favor, these figures are still found on modern stitchery, but their popularity on colonial sampler embroidery waned as more innovative designs became fashionable. Although Mary's figures are similar in shape  and stitching technique to those worked on an anonymous piece  dated 1744,² this Adam and Eve sampler bears only faint resemblance  to those worked near the shores of Boston Bay a generation  before and may have been stitched in New Hampshire.  Mary's anonymous schoolmistress designed her sampler with a three-sided border of trifoliate leaves. The reversing vines grow from a pair of footed, double-handled vases, which are decorated to resemble fine porcelain. Splendid blue birds rest on vine-twigs near the upper corners of the frame. This may be one of the first uses of this impressive vase and vine design; a decade later it appears on samplers in extravagantly needleworked border patterns.  At present, three examples of the adaptation of this stylish  design come to mind: samplers worked in the 1780s at the preeminent  school kept by Mary Balch in Providence, Rhode Island;³  samplers by Mehitable Foster (fig. 8) and the Canterbury,  New Hampshire, group; and a sampler worked in 1800 by Elizabeth Cutts of Berwick, Maine.⁴  The use of a darkly colored thread to outline the predominant  leaf designs on the apple tree and those within the space of the  border is an artistic technique frequently employed in New  Hampshire samplerwork. It served to emphasize specific shapes, propelling the eye to selected fields in the design. The decorative basket that appears center top, for example, was a favorite motif of the Canterbury schoolmistress, Hannah Wise Rogers (see fig.  8), from Ipswich, Massachusetts.  The delicate corner motifs, reaching diagonally into the  needleworked picture, are reminiscent of seventeenth-century  English sampler patterns worked in a double-running stitch, such  as those illustrated in Averil Colby's Samplers.⁵ Considered in its  entirety, Mary's sampler is a reflection of the changing trends that  appeared in schoolgirl embroidery in southeastern New Hampshire  and along the north shore of Massachusetts during the turbulent  1770s: the schoolmistress imported proven figurative  forms from the Boston area, where she may have attended school;  she then embellished the pictorial panel with a regional flourish  and added an innovative border of her own design.  The samplermaker, identified by descendants as Mary Canney,  cannot be traced.⁶ She may have lived in Dover, New Hampshire,  situated across the Great Bay from Portsmouth, where public  schooling for girls began as early as 1773.⁷ A private school for  girls, where "any sort of Needlework" was taught, was advertised  by Mary Homans in a 1772 issue of the New Hampshire Gazette.s  While it is not out of the ordinary for embroidered numbers indicating  dates or ages to be missing from samplers, it is most uncommon  to discover that a surname has been removed, as is the  case with this sampler. Unfortunately, the reason for this drastic measure has not yet been discovered.  Information accompanying the sampler points out that it was handed down in the family in this order: Ichabod Canney (1774-1854); Mary Canney Waldron (1804-1891), daughter; Richard Waldron (1832-1900), son; William Perry.⁹ Ichabod Canney was the son of Moses ^lO and Mary Canney of Dover, New Hampshire.¹¹ In 1799, Moses remarried.¹² although she has not been specifically identified, the samplermaker was probably Ichabod's mother, Mary, who died sometime before 1799.  By counting the barren strands of the linen ground, Mary's  maiden name would appear to have comprised only four diminutive,  cross-stitched letters (possibly "Cany," a variation of Canney),  but, along with the numbers that revealed her age, those  threads were removed long ago.     

 

1. See the samplers of Mariah Deavenport, 1741 (collection, Windham Library, NH), and Mary Parker, 1741 (private collection), in Bolton and Coe, American Samplers, opp. 38, 41, 67.   

2. Sotheby's, New York, catalogue, Important Frakturs, Embroidered Pictures, Theorem Paintings, and Cutwork Pictures:from the Collection of Edgar William  and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, January 23 and 24,  1974, lot 200.   

3. Betty Ring, Let Virtue Be a Guide to Thee (Providence, RI: Rhode Island Historical Society, 1983), 119, 121, 125.   

4. The Cutts sampler is in a private collection; see Glee Krueger, A Gallery of American Samplers (New York, NY: E. P. Dutton/Museum of American Folk Art, 1978), 36.   

5. Averil Colby, Samplers (London: B.T. Batsford, 1964), 72, 162.   

6. International Genealogical Index, 1988, lists a Mary Canney, born August 3, 1758, daughter of John Canneyand Love Tebbetts of Dover Township, Strafford County, New Hampshire. Other records indicate that the Canney and Waldron families frequently intermarried. It is thus possible to surmise that Mary Canney could have married Moses Canney of Dover. She would then have been fourteen years old when working the sampler and nineteen when Ichabod was born. The surname removed from the sampler linen could have been”Cany," as documents reveal the spelling varied from Cenny or Canny to Kenny and Canney.   

7. Thomas Woody, A History of Women's Education in the United States, vol. 1 (New York, NY: Octagon Books, 1974), 144.   

8. Krueger, New England Samplers, 193.   

9. Christie's, New York, catalogue, Highly Important American Furniture, Silver, Folk and Decorative Arts, October 21, 1989, lot 166.   

10. International Genealogical Index, 1988.   

11. Ibid. See also Deed Book, Strafford County, New Hampshire, vol. 108: 59.   

12. International Genealogical Index, 1988. See also Deed Book, Strafford County, New Hampshire, vol. 47:  201.