An 18th century English sampler

The linen ground worked in silk thread in a variety of stitches by Hannah Wittum in 1773, with two leopards flanking a flowering stem between urns of flowers above the embroiderer’s names. In the upper rows, between two renderings of the alphabet, are stitched the cardinal numbers to twenty followed by the date ‘1773’, and the following verse…

‘God Prosper Them that gave me This / And Crown them with a Heavenly Bliss’

These lines are part of a longer conventional sampler text, one which appears in full on a 1790 sampler stitched by Elizabeth Gooding in Norwich, and ascribed to a school run by Mrs Wright. ‘Wittum’ was one of several variants of the surname ‘Witham’, and was found most commonly in Essex and Lincolnshire, spreading thence to Maine, Massachusetts, and other states of the north-eastern U.S.A.

With some losses to the stitched lettering and motifs.

The sampler 36.6cm (14⅜”) high and 26.1cm (10¼”) wide

The frame 40.9cm (16⅛”) high and 30.9cm (12⅛”) wide.