Rare Needlework Sampler, M. Witmer, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Dated 1828

Worked in silk threads on linen in eyelet, queen, Gobelin, chain, tent and cross-stitches the whole edged with a flat satin ribbon, double-glazed with paper backing.  Inscribed: While on my varied hues you gaze/And fancy beauty glowing there/Reflect! All beauty is but nought/Tis virtue that adorns the fair M. Witmer/Philadela/Wrought/1828 Paper backing is inscribed: Wrought/at/Mrs SG Rapp's/Seminary/S,W,corner of High & eight Sts Schoolmistress: Sarah G. Rapp. 17 by 17 inches. Some discoloration, minor loss and fading.

Adams House Antiques, Tustin, California, May, 1980

WIth discoloration; ribbon breaks at bottom.
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Exhibited and Literature: LACMA, pp. 106-107, fig. 48

The Witmer sisters are an elusive pair, but their imaginative preceptress, Sarah G. Rapp of Philadelphia, devised an unusual stratagem to assure herself long-lasting recognition. By framing samplers worked under her instruction with glass, front and back, and inserting a calligraphic signature on the paper backing, she ensured that even twentieth-century admirers would remember her address. Indeed, as long as the sampler survived, so in a way would the clever teacher and her school for girls. Sarah G. Rapp was hardly an inspired needlework designer, although she demanded perfection in execution. Conspicuously similar, the Witmer samplers are unimaginative and pedestrian in format, unlike the outstanding pictorial prototypes worked in countless other Philadelphia schools. They serve, instead, to establish Rapp's individual style, which appears resolutely impervious to the splendid creations being produced in the schools of her competitors. There is one noticeable traditional pattern on these finely wrought linen squares: the double, entwined carnation border that became an integral element in Philadelphia sampler embroideries as early as the 1790s.¹ The softly colored frame of pink silk ribbon and the circular floral wreaths, encompassing the first initial of each Witmer child, are also familiar Pennsylvania sampler motifs. Sarah Rapp points to the success of her school in an advertisement appearing in the United States Gazette, Philadelphia, on August 27, 1828: 

 

... Mrs. S. G. Rapp, grateful to her friends & the public for the liberal patronage hitherto received, informs them that the duties of her seminary were resumed on the 18th instant. The branches taught are reading, writing, arithmetic, english grammar, geography with the use of maps, ancient and modern history, composition and book keeping according to the most approved modern practice. Also, plain and ornamental needlework. ... 

 

SARAH RAPP 

For over thirty years, Sarah Rapp, her husband Joseph, and their daughter Sarah kept a school for girls at various Philadelphia locations within the vicinity of Penn Square. The city directories reveal a pattern of constant relocation suggesting the need for larger, or perhaps smaller, quarters, as changing fortunes dictated. The Rapps began teaching on Eighth Street, moving through the years to Sixth, then Sansom (George), Tenth, Buttonwood, and Green streets.² Sarah Rapp taught for one year after her husband's death in 1859.³ By 1861 she had taken a house on Percy Street near Poplar and was engaged in the business of making paper boxes.⁴ These pasteboard boxes were extremely popular during the first half of the nineteenth century for storing various articles of women's apparel and other trinkets. Usually round or oval in shape, they were most often covered with handsomely designed lengths of block-printed wallpaper or stenciled paper of some colorful motif. Frequently, the boxes were manufactured by professional painters; however, after thirty-five years of instructing young ladies in sampler embroidery, ornamental needlework, and the increasingly popular art of drawing and watercolor painting, Sarah Rapp had served her apprenticeship and was adequately prepared to master the skill of covering paper boxes for the trade.⁵ The Witmer girls probably lived in or near Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where the Witmer name can be found in early records. 

 

1. Schiffer, Historical Needlework of Pennsylvania, 38. See also Ring, American Needlework Treasures, 39. 

2. Philadelphia City Directory, 1819-1861. 

3. Board of Health Burial Recordsfor Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Archives of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, microfilm), XR 499: 11. These records indicate that Joseph B. Rapp died on August 15, 1857, and was buried in the German Baptist Cemetery. Sarah A. Rapp, age 20 years, daughter of Joseph and Sarah, died of peritonitis on January 25, 1853. 

4. Philadelphia City Directory, 1861. 

5. Little, Neat and Tidy, 103.