Text Sampler

Text sampler of the No Town project, by Caroline McQuarrie, New Zealand, 2014. Text sampler of the No Town project, by Caroline McQuarrie, New Zealand, 2014.

A text sampler is a form of sampler, in which the main design consists of a text rather than a series of decorative patterns or stitches. This type of sampler developed in northwestern Europe in the mid-seventeenth century and was especially popular among the Protestants. The texts often are orthodox moral or religious quotations. This form of sampler was spread around the world via British colonists, especially in North America.

A famous example of a text sampler was made by Elizabeth Parker (Sussex, England), in which she starts the very long text with: "As I cannot write I put this down simply and freely as I might speak to a person to whose intimacy and tenderness I can fully entrust myself and who I know will bear with all my weaknesses." (c. 1830; Victoria and Albert Museum, acc. no. T.6-1956).

Digital source (retrieved 30 March 2016).

Digital source of illustration (retrieved 2 July 2016).

GVE

Last modified on Monday, 20 March 2017 10:49