Anniken Christensen Simensen 1768

Description

This sampler, probably Danish, was stitched with brilliantly colored (and well preserved) silk threads on a fine woolen ground. A handwritten genealogy was affixed to the back, tracing ownership of the sampler from the maker, Anniken, to her daughter, and so on, for over 150 years, until it was sold anonymously at auction. The distinctive band of flowers within satin stitched diamonds across the top closely resembles examples illustrated in the book Nanveklude by Minna Kragelund (published for the Nationalmuseet of Copenhagen in 1977), particularly figures 1 and 2, dated 1750 and 1779. Some of the motifs seen in this sampler can be traced to Johan Sibmacher’s pattern books, the first of which was printed in Germany around 1600. The Scandinavian word for ‘sampler’- navneklude- means, literally, “name cloths”. Stitches used in the execution of this sampler are cross, counted satin, four-sided, eyelet, and back. While the five flowers within diamonds across the top were stitched freehand on the original sampler, charted (as well as freehand scale drawings) have been supplied.