Margaret Watt
M. Leslie Mitchell’s School, Rora,
Aberdeen, Scotland, 1848
This delightful Scottish sampler is signed, along the bottom, "Margaret Watt age 13, April 25, 1848 M. Leslie Mitchell’s School Rora." Margaret featured the initials of her parents in large, classically Scottish, fanciful letters at the top and included a wonderful scene of a large recumbent deer with many potted and growing flowers and trees. Inside the rectangle in the lower register, it reads,
Guide me O God in virtue's path
Teach me thy law divine
Thy grace impart upon my heart
Becomingly to shine.
Just above that are a male and female peacock with little birds and trees flanking the thistle plant.
Rora is a small village in Aberdeen, Scotland. Margaret Watt is the daughter of Alexander and Margaret (Milne) Watt who lived in Longside, a town about 3 miles away. She was baptized on June 7, 1835.
The sampler was worked in wool and silk on tan linen and is in excellent condition. It has been conservation mounted into a molded and painted black frame. A photo of the back of the sampler taken prior to mounting indicates that the colors are very close to their original intensity.
photo of reverse