Betty Ladd

This sampler offers a winning combination – a wonderfully appealing subject and excellent needlework throughout. Betty Ladd stitched “The Ten Commandments in verse Exodus Chapter the twentieth,” and, unusually, turned them into rhyming couplets.

Along the bottom is a delightful pictorial register with the dogs chasing a deer while birds (or butterflies?) intermingle with trees. 

Worked in silk on linen, the sampler is in very good condition with a very few minor areas of loss. It has been conservation mounted and is in the fine early 19th century beveled frame with a gilt liner that housed it for many years.