Emma Warr

Family record samplers were very much in vogue in the United States and a great number were made here in the early 19th century. Popularity for this form didn’t travel across the pond and very few were made by English samplermakers. The handful of known examples that have surfaced are from the 1830s and 40s.

Signed, “Emma Warr work’d this in the eighth year of her age,” this handsome family record sampler is classically English in composition – highly structured and symmetrical, with mirror image motifs. The needlework is very tight, with tiny stitches, notable for such a young samplermaker. 

Emma listed her birth along with those of her siblings; she was the second eldest of five children. The Warr family, Harry and Anne and their children, lived in Bridport, a small town just two miles inland from the English Channel. Harry served as Postmaster as recorded in the 1841 Census.

The sampler was worked in silk on wool and it’s in excellent condition. It has been conservation mounted into a molded frame with a bit of gold leaf.