Christina Arcularius-1792
Christina's sampler belongs to an important group of Biblical samplers made in New York. They all contain Biblical scenes and are worked within a deeply arcaded border. The entire ground is covered, mainly in cross stitch. A number of them have inner and outer borders worked in queen stitch. Christina's sampler has her queen stitched areas worked a bit differently. The trees that the men are climbing in are typical of trees found on Dutch samplers and some of the samplers have furniture motifs on them which are found on Dutch samplers.
The Huguenots who fled France first settled in the Netherlands and then immigrated to New York. It's believed that these samplers originated in French boarding schools for girls first established in New Rochelle. The Prominent Dutch and English families sent their daughters to these schools. French women were keeping schools in New York and it's likely that at least one of them had attended a school in New Rochelle. The style of these samplers lasted about twenty two years.
Christina was the daughter of a german baker, Philip Jacob Arcularius and Elizabeth Grimm. Philip was born in Marburg, Germany, around 1748, Philip Jacob Arcularius immigrated to New York prior to the Revolution and engaged in the baking business with his brothers. According to family legend, Arcularius volunteered to supply the city’s soldiers with bread during the Revolutionary War. By the 1790s he had left the baker’s trade to become a tanner and evidently prospered as a master artisan. Philip married Elizabeth Grim in New York City’s Lutheran Church in 1775, and the couple settled into a home on Frankfort Street. There they became parents to eleven children, seven of whom survived to adulthood. Christina, the eldest, was born in 1777. In 1799 she married Samuel Barker Harper and they had eight children.
For more information on these samplers refer to Girlhood Embroidery by Betty Ring. Above info. is from http://www.common-place.org/vol-04/no-04/lessons/from
The original sampler is in the collection of The New York Historical Society 54436.
The sampler is worked in cross stitch, queen, cross over one.
Size: 10.5" x 14" (27cm x 36cm)
Thread Count: 35 count (14 thr/cm linen)
Colour:
Recommended Level: Intermediate
Cost: chrt. $33.00
Categories: Last Year, North American / Mexico
ID: 355
All prices are in US Dollars.
