Betsey Putnam, Danvers, Essex County, Massachusetts, 1796 Documented 18th century American samplers have become increasingly scarce, and we are delighted to present this praiseworthy example inscribed "Betsey Putnam's sampler wrought in the twelfth year of her age, 1796." This sampler bears a strong resemblance to plate 14 in Samplers and Samplermakers by Mary Jaene Edmonds, a sampler worked in Boxford, Mass., circa 1804. These two samplers share the same charming cross-hatched center basket with looped handle, odd stylization of the capital letter "D", geometric pine trees and exact verse: "Each pleasing art lends softness to the mind and with our studies are our lives refined". The letters which appear at the end of the alphabet are most likely three sets of initials of classmates, a treatment which appears on the Boxford sampler as well. Research in the Essex County area revealed Betsey Putnam to be the daughter of Dr. James Phillips and Mary (Herrick) Putnam, born in Danvers (a town quite close to Boxford) on November 11, 1785. Betsey did not marry, and most interestingly, according to the published family and histories, became, along with her sister Hannah, a "famous schoolteacher" about whom many accounts have been written. Betsey died 1847 and was well remembered through the end of the 19th century. Betsey's sampler, worked when she was eleven years old, combines classic alphabets and verse with the pictorial sophistication indigenous to Essex County. Worked in silk on linen, the sampler is in excellent condition and conservation mounted into a tiger maple frame.
Sampler size: 12 1/4" x 10 3/4
$4,200.00
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