The unicorn was the device of James I. and the siren or mermaid of Lady Frazer, who is said to have worked her own golden hair in the heart of a Tudor rose on a book cover for James I.
The hart was also a device of Richard II. and the "broom pod" of the Plantagenets. The caterpillar and butterfly were specially badges of Charles I., while the oak-tree and acorn were invariably worked into every picture in memory of Charles II.'s escape in an oak tree.
IX
SAMPLERS
IX
SAMPLERS
Real art work—Specimens in South Kensington Museum—High price now obtained.
A "sampler" is an example or a sample of the worker's skill and cleverness in design and stitching. When they first appeared, as far as we know about the middle of the seventeenth century, they were merely a collection of embroidery, lace, cut and drawn work stitches, and had little affinity to the samplers of a later date, which seemed especially ordained to show various patterns of cross stitches, the alphabet, and the numerals.
The early samplers were real works of art; they were frequently over a yard long, not more than a quarter of a yard wide, and were adorned with as many as thirty different patterns of lace and cut and drawn work. This extreme narrowness was to enable the sampler to be rolled on a little ivory stick, like the Japanese kakemonas.