O Sweet Humility – Eliza Townsend’s Work 1835

Model: 40 count Vintage Pecan Butter by Lakeside Linens.
Floss:  Needlepoint Ink Silks (NPI)      Stitch Count:  259 wide x 265 high     Design Size:  12.95 x 13.25
Original Size: approximately 16 inches x 16 inches on 32 count linen with cotton threads over two with hemstitched edges
Stitches used: cross stitch over two, satin stich, cross stitch over one for verse, name, and birds
Conversion to DMC and 100/3 silks provided

Provenance: With nothing but a name and date, no personal information could be discovered about the stitcher of this vibrant sampler but it is probable she was an English girl. This can be surmised due to her name, the mirrored images of the motifs flanking the moralistic verse, the large red building, and the lower pastoral scene of a bucolic country hillside which had come into vogue in the early 1800s based on the period of Romanticism (1798-1837). An ideal landscape is depicted where peace reigns among man and God’s creatures and all is in harmony with God’s plan. The large red edifice rises from the lawn and takes center stage, perhaps a church as depicted by the multiple crosses on the dual steeples.

The verse:

“O sweet humility can words impart

How much I love thee how divine thou art
Nurse us not only in our infant age

Conduct us still through each successive stage

Of varying life lead us from youth’s gay prime

To the last step of man’s appointed time

Eliza Townsend’s Work 1835”