A RARE WILLIAM AND MARY NEEDLEWORK 'JUDITH HAYLE' BAND SAMPLER

A RARE WILLIAM AND MARY NEEDLEWORK 'JUDITH HAYLE' BAND SAMPLER

BY MARTHA CUSSEN, IPSWICH SCHOOL

worked in polychrome with silk floss and spun silk on an undyed linen ground, in running, cross, satin and eyelet stitch, with an alphabet, numerals and text bands 'Remember Time will come when we must give Account to God how we on Earth..did live', with bands of flowers, dated 'August The 30 1696', signed 'Martha Cussen' with two prominent rectangular cartouches, one with the initials 'I H' for Judith Hayle, the other with initials 'M C' for Martha Cussen, in a later glazed giltwood frame

60.4 x 15.7cm

Provenance

Upper Slaughter Manor, The Collection of Micheál and Elizabeth Feller.

Literature

The Feller Needlework Collection: 1, pp.148-149 for a discussion of this sampler.

Catalogue Note

The School of Judith Hayle has been well documented by Edwina Ehrman in her book: 'The Judith Hayle Samplers' and until recently there were eleven known samplers taught by the widow Judith or Iudah Haylem in her native town of Ipswich. This is thought to be the twelfth from the Paul Estate of Woodside, Ipswich as it displays the distinctive signature cartouches, bands from a shared repertoire and a text displaying a decorated 'O'. This present lot follows on chronologically from one that Mary Canting stitched in 1694 and precedes Ann Holwell's work of 1699. A candidate for the stitching of this sampler is Martha, daughter of Edmond and Hannah Cousin of Brantham, Suffolk, christened on 18th October 1686, which, if correct, would mean that Martha was not quite ten when she dated her sampler.

See Christie's, New York, Important American Furniture, Folk Art and Silver, lot 118 for a related Judith Hayle sampler by Elizabeth Searles, dated '1701'.