Making Connections: Sarah Clark

Sarah Clark’s sampler, currently being reproduced, met with great enthusiasm when it was first posted on @norfolksamplers, with multiple requests to offer it as a reproduction chart. Having always been more of a researcher than a stitcher, I never fully appreciated the allure of reproduction samplers. It was not until assisting Bethany in charting Sarah Clark (as well as some forthcoming project kits) that I began to appreciate the insights one can gain when required to look slowly and closely at motifs, formats and materials. I feel I now have a new understanding of the sophistication of even the simplest of compositions.

The Sarah Clark sampler is dated 1789. While there are scores of Sarah Clarks in England who would fit into this time frame and twelve in Norfolk alone, including two in Norwich, the hallmark linked octagon bands, varigated pine trees, yellow birds, and other characteristic regional motifs made us confident this sampler was from Norfolk.

Because the twisted or twining arcades in the Clark sampler were reminiscent of the bands of 18th and 19th -century Scottish samplers we wondered if there was direct design influence between the areas, Norfolk and Scotland/Northern England, transmitted through travel, trade, or family connections. Simultaneously and/or alternatively was the thought that there was a similar, perhaps nostalgic, impulse in both regions to look back to or continue sampler traditions of an earlier century. We decided to look more closely at 17th-century British band samplers, browsing through the online and published collections of the V&A, the Metropolitan Museum, the MFA Boston, sampler dealers and important private collections to find works with the twisted arcade band that was one of the features of long band samplers also appearing in Sarah Clark. We would then try to discern other motifs to see if there was a relationship to documented Norfolk samplers.

In order to remain as objective as possible it was only after we had agreed upon the “Norfolk-ness” of certain samplers that we began to research their origins. Visual clues had narrowed our search to three signed 17th- and early 18th-century band samplers –the Frances James dated 1627 (https://tinyurl.com/Montacute-House), the Dorothy Ward sampler of 1687 (https://tinyurl.com/Goodhart-Collection), and the Elizabeth Hearne sampler of 1700 (formerly Feller Collection).

(L) Frances James (C) Dorothy Ward (R) Elizabeth Hearne

The Frances James sampler (1627) is worked in the green and red with yellow palette that we often associate with Scottish alphabet samplers. Jacqueline Holdsworth remarked upon this coloration on the James sampler in her essay in The Goodhart Sampler catalogue, noting that the appearance of these rich hues was in contrast to the soft coloring of many of the samplers from the first half of the 17th Century (p. 142). Reds and greens and gold yellow also predominate on the Elizabeth Hearne sampler (1700), while the Dorothy Ward sampler (1687) is worked in greens and salmon with similar blue and faded yellow-cream accents. A century later, the Sarah Clark sampler of 1787 shares a like color scheme.

While we have not (yet) been able to confirm a Scottish connection, we have discovered that all three of these samplers have a probable origin in East Anglia. Dorothy Ward’s baptism was recorded 16 August 1676 in Tittleshall, Norfolk at the 13th -century Church of St. Mary. She was the daughter of Dorothy and Thomas Ward. Tittleshall is approximately 25 miles northwest of Norwich.

The inscription on Elizabeth Hearne’s 1700 sampler would appear to indicate that she was eight when she completed her work, a prodigious accomplishment for one so young, but the records have yielded no likely candidates with this name born between 1691 and 1693 in either England or Scotland. However, an Elizabeth Hearne, daughter of George and Margaret, was christened at St. Nicholas, Blakeney Norfolk on 15 August 1686. Elizabeth’s sampler inscription reads “ELIZABETH HEARNE HER WORK IN THE EIGHTH/ YEAR OF HER AGE AND IN THE YEAR 1700”. Might the “and” indicate two separate events? That she began her work in her eighth year and finished it in 1700, the date marking the completion of a long project and the beginning of a new century?

Only one candidate has been found for the embroiderer of the 1627 sampler. Frances, the daughter of Frances & Thomas James was baptized on 5 December 1616 at All Saints, Lawshall Suffolk, south of the Norwich border near Bury St.Edmonds , making her eleven when she dated her sampler.

A long band sampler dated both 1711 and 1713 (Feller collection) also has Norfolk characteristics, including single heart & diamond motifs, alphabets in alternating pastel colors, acorns, and flame-stitch bands in the same bright colors as the other three samplers. But initialed simply HC, the sampler cannot be documented.

In addition to the color scheme, characteristics that these samplers carried through to Norfolk samplers of subsequent centuries include the twining arcade with palm fronds, alternating upright and pendant acorn bands, Norfolk style lettering, linked diamond bands and scrolls that may be prototypes for the alternating heart bands. The Hearne sampler also makes use of satin stitches for the lettering, a characteristic of certain early to mid-eighteenth-century Norfolk pieces. (More on these in a later article).

We began this exploration by observing the similarities between the Sarah Clark sampler of 1789 and the bands and motifs of certain 17th-century samplers. But what of the Norfolk needlework of the intervening years? In charting the reproduction pattern for Sarah Clark, piecing together our Mary Newman puzzle (Other Offerings) and charting one of her designs for a forthcoming project, we noticed that Mary Newman also used some of those same 17th-century elements identified on Sarah Clark: The palette of primary colors, the hallmark linked octagon bands, striated pine trees, alphabet style, and other characteristic regional motifs, the same stylized upright flowers in pots, as well as birds perched on bushes, and the antique honeysuckle band. As evidence of an ongoing rather than a newly revived tradition, Mary Newman’s sampler predates Sarah Clark’s by a generation.

There is another sampler, that of Ann Monford (collection of Linda Stolz @emdesignsstitching), that shares characteristic of both the Sarah Clark and Mary Newman samplers. Embroidered in colors familiar to both of these samplers, Ann’s design displays the flower-framing, central twining arcade accented with palm fronds, the rows of striated pine trees, perched birds, and honeysuckle band of Sarah’s work as well as the salient features of Mary’s design –the mound and basket arrangement in the bottom register and flanking blue and gold cornucopia spilling forth a profusion of flowering vines that climb the sides of the sampler to the bright sunflower that surmounts the composition.

Ann Monford (undated)

Ann’s work is undated (let that be a lesson to us). The only likely candidate found to date was the daughter of Elesabeth and Roberd Monford, baptized 6 December 1741 in Ashmanhaugh, Norfolk, a village 12.5 miles (29 km) northeast of Norwich.

The Ann Monford, Mary Newman, and Sarah Clark samplers (comparisons pictures below) represent the continuation and reinvention of previously unrecognized but distinctive Norfolk motifs and traditions, some harking back to a previous century, adapted over a period of almost three generations from approximately 1753 to 1789. We have yet to discover familial or educational links between these girls and we would welcome any information or leads from our readers. All contributions will be credited and no images will be published without permission.