Object Image
Band samplers comprise neatly worked rows of patterns suitable for repeating motifs or figural motifs on the long narrow strip of linen canvas. This is the most common type of extant seventeenth-century sampler, and its standard format was established by about 1630. The foundation was generally cut from one complete width of plain-weave linen, so that the selvages are present at what becomes the top and bottom of the finished work, and the sides are hemmed. Polychrome band samplers are typical, although some band samplers combined rows of whitework, cutwork, and needle lace with the polychrome patterns (see MMA, 57.122.368). A band sampler such as this would have most likely been a task complet...
1656
Linen worked with silk thread; long-and-short, split, stem, back, tent, cross, and satin stiches
70.8 x 26.4cm
64.101.1327
Image and text © Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2019

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art
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