Sampler (Genealogical sampler)

Description

This is a genealogical sampler with silk threads, chenille, pencil, and paint on a plain-woven linen ground. It was worked by Fanny Whitney of Portland, Maine. Portland samplers and needlework pictures are easily recognizable. An extraordinary interest in genealogies endured throughout the region during the first forty years of the 19th century, and family registers appeared in both samplers and silkwork pictures. The "winged cherub" is characteristic of a particular group of Portland samplers and mourning pictures. In this case, a penciled "winged cherub" separates the Whitney children's birth dates from a list of death dates for three of those children. This cherub motif also appears on Fanny's watercolor mourning picture and on other Portland samplers dated 1822.