Rare needlework sampler, Elizabeth Sheffield (1771-?) Newport, Rhode Island, dated 1784

Worked in silk on linen

Inscribed recto, silk thread: [alphabet]/ ELIZABETH SHEFFIELD / BORN JULY 20 177[?]/ [alphabet] ELIZABETH SHEFFI/Now in thy youth take hold on truth/Let Jefus be thy Guide/Be allway mindfull of the Lord / Prepare to be his Bride / Elizabeth / Sheffield/ October / 11 /1784

Skinner Auctioneers, Boston, Massachusetts, "An Auction of Americana," January 6-7, 1983, lot 182
Stephen Score, Essex, Massachusetts
Marjorie Schorsch, Greenwich, Connecticut, 1983

"Rhode Island Needlework, 1730-1830," Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1984
"Women Only: Folk Art by Female Hands," New York, American Folk Art Museum, April 6-September 12, 2010

Ring, Betty. Let Virtue Be a Guide to Thee: Needlework in the Education of Rhode Island Women, 1730-1830. Providence: Rhode Island Historical Society, 1983, p. 74
American Radiance: The Ralph Esmerian Gift to the American Folk Art Museum, p. 294, fig. 255

Some minor discoloration in the linen around
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.

Rhode Island samplers were among the first American schoolgirl embroideries to be recognized by serious collectors and textile scholars as a distinctive group with extraordinary visual appeal. This interest was no doubt stimulated by an unprecedented exhibition of 334 New England samplers that was sponsored by the Rhode Island Historical Society in Providence in 1920 and consisted largely of Rhode Island pieces. The following year, Ethel Stanwood Bolton and Eva Johnston Coe completed their incomparable landmark study called American Samplers, and they drew particular attention to the similarities of the samplers of Providence and Warren, Rhode Island.¹Surprisingly they failed to mention that the forms seen in these samplers originally emanated from Newport, the birthplace of Providence and Warren schoolmistresses Mary Balch (1762-1831) and Martha Pease Davis (1743-1806), despite the fact that Hannah Burrill's superb 1770 Newport sampler had been exhibited in 1920.

Burrill's sampler represented Newport's many-peopled form of the 1770s with figures in its upper border as well as in its deep central band.² Perhaps the authors were aware of the dominant Newport style of the 1780s with birds in the upper border, for In American Samplers they described Elizabeth Sheffield's 1784 sampler and revealed that it had been for sale at Koopman's, a Boston shop, in February 1919.³

The Sheffield sampler is delicately worked with an unusually pleasing combination of colors in its strawberry band pattern and a unique spread-winged bird in its upper left corner. Although Elizabeth provided her birthdate, in the typical Newport sampler manner, her identity is uncertain. She may have been the daughter of Amos and Mary Burrington Sheffield who married James Tallman in Newport on October 18, 1787.

Since 1921, awareness of Newport and Providence samplers, as well as those from Warren and Bristol, has increased dramatically, and a great many previously unknown pieces have emerged, including the 1773 Newport samplers of schoolmistress Mary Balch and the 1746 work of her mother, Sarah Rogers Balch (1735-1811).⁴ Despite late-twentieth century efforts, however, the Newport schoolmistress responsible for introducing the sampler styles that would spread throughout Rhode Island is still unknown. -B.R.

¹ Ethel Stanwood Bolton and Eva Johnston Coe, American Samplers (Boston: Massachusetts Society of the Colonial Dames of America, 1921), pp. 367-69.

² Betty Ring, Let Virtue Be a Guide to Thee: Needlework in the Education of Rhode Island Women, 1730-1830 (Providence: Rhode Island Historical Society, 1983), p. 69, fig. 9.

³ Bolton and Cae, American Samplers, p.74.

⁴ Betty Ring, "Mary Balch's Newport Sampler," The Magazine Antiques 124, no. 3 (September 1983): 501- 2.