Day 264- Sampler

 September 3, 2021

 

I had to force myself to go to the museum after physical therapy. I stopped on 57th Street for what must have been just a few minutes but felt like an eternity, wavering between turning back to take the subway home or heading toward Madison to take the uptown bus.  I dug a hard boiled egg out of my bag, ate the egg and had some water, and felt energized enough to continue. And I'm so glad I did! Today's destination, gallery 727 is a narrow rectangular space hung with 10 samplers made between about 1775 and 1830 by girls in Pennsylvania and Delaware. And while they are not Great Works of Art, they are of considerable interest as sociological and cultural artifacts. 

I say "girls" advisedly. We know who the makers are - they customarily included their names, suggesting to me that they were proud of their handiwork, along with the year the sampler was made. Other records confirm their birthdates, so we know that the girls who made these samplers ranged in age from 10 to 19, with all but one under 17; their average age was 14. I wonder what toll the very fine stitching took on the girls' vision.  Embroidery, I learn, was taught in schools; one caption suggests that girls began with embroidery designs involving the alphabet and numerals and then moved on to more elaborate floral and other design elements. According to the signage, the samplers made by girls from Pennsylvania Dutch families were quite distinct from those of girls whose families were English in origin, although I'm not sure I see the differences. The rickrack border  framing the central design in one sampler, according to the label, indicates that the sampler was intended for display-- but weren't all nicely done samplers made to be shown off? I mean, I can't imagine what practical purpose they could possibly serve. 

Today's object was clearly meant to be seen (and presumably its maker hoped that it would be admired).  Measuring about 30 inches high and 24 inches wide, the sampler was made in 1830 by Mary Ann Stauffer, age 19, of East Hempfield in Lancaster County. The dedication,  embroidered in English, says that the sampler was a gift to Henry Musselman and his wife Veronica. I like to think that Veronica was Mary Ann's sister, or maybe her best friend, and that the sampler was a wedding present, but the label provides no information on this score. 

The sampler is embroidered mostly in white and green silk thread against a pink linen cloth. It depicts a rather grand two-story house with five large shutter-framed windows,  three on the upper level and one on either side of the front door, which is topped with a fan window. A weather vane sits on top of the house, as does a bird. Is the house the Musselman home, or an idealized image of a house? A neat path cutting across a green lawn leads to the front door. Four animals whose identity I can't make out lie on the front lawn - sheep, perhaps? I suspect they are to be seen symbolically rather than literally, but I don't know. A peculiar palm tree with long fronds stands to the right of the house - a symbol of heaven, I wonder?  Under the palm is a square encased in a diamond form, which I take to be a hex sign, but again, I don't know.  The work is very fine: the bricks and shingles are individually detailed with raised stitching, and single lines of stitching define the 12 panes of glass in each window. It must have taken Mary Ann months to complete.

But what really blows me away - what leaves me muttering "Oh God" over and over -  is that I recognize the long text in German to the left of the house, which begins, "Denn alles fleisch, es ist wie Grass...."  Strains of the chorus from the Brahms Requiem, which I've sung so many times, run through my mind.  I knew that the passages come from the Bible; what I didn't know until I looked it up just this minute is that 

the German translation was by Martin Luther! Rather a depressing message, that first passage: "For all flesh is as grass,/and all the glory of man as the flower of grass/The grass withers, and its flower falls away." But then, Mary Ann adds the next verse, also in German, "But the word of the Lord endures forever." 

And that, I suppose, is the message of the sampler. Not just, "God bless our nice, prosperous home," but "May those who live here trust in the Lord."  And maybe, "May this sampler lead you to think of God."  It's a reminder of how important religion was to Mary Ann, and to the society in which she lived.

September 7, 2021

My choice of this sampler to write about seems beshert when I discover that the Unetaneh Tokef prayer that is so central to Rosh Hashanah, and which has been part of the holiday liturgy for centuries, also likens man to withering grass and a fading flower.  Mary Ann may have thought that the passage she excerpted for her sampler originated in I Peter, and it is found there (verses 24-25). But as with so many other passages, the writers of the New Testament cribbed from the Hebrew Bible, specifically Isaiah 40: 6-8.  Tradition has it that the Hebrew prayer was composed by an 11th century rabbi, Amnon of Mainz, but a copy of the prayer is found in a document in the Cairo Geniza that dates to the 8th century.  On this day of reflection,  the sampler connects me to a very long tradition.