Page 27 - Demo

We are pleased to offer this praiseworthy sampler which was in the collection of Betty Ring, the legendary scholar and needlework collector and a dear friend of ours. Sarah E. Ballade worked this highly engaging sampler, featuring a fine, classically inspired scene, a special interest of Betty%u2019s. A young lady wearing an empire gown and a lustrous blue silk shawl over one shoulder stands on the large grassy hill and seems to gesture in greeting. A stand of Greek columns, perhaps the remains of a temple, and several carefully worked trees finish the scene. Two large, feathery birds carry a beautiful flower garland in their beaks, forming the surround to the fine inscription and two-line verse. The alphabets include one that is particularly large and crisply defined, worked in the four-sided stitch, and many elements are worked in the queen%u2019s-stitch. Sarah noted on her sampler that she was from Niagara, a town in Porter County, New York, at the entrance into Lake Ontario. The town was destroyed by the British in December of 1813, but was rebuilt in a better style than previously, according to an 1823 geographic gazetteer, published in Boston. The two-line verse that Sarah worked as a part of her inscription was published as early as 1796 in London in The Works of Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe in Four Volumes, in a section entitled Devout Exercises of the Heart. Sarah E. Ballade was born in New York State circa 1828 and the sampler would have been made when she was approximately 12 years old. Census records tell us that by 1849 Sarah married Ira S. Bush. In 1862, Sarah%u2019s husband signed on to serve in the Civil War in the 124th New York Volunteer Infantry, and became a captain of Company F in the highly regarded Orange Blossom Company of Orange County. In 1870 Sarah and Ira were living with their six children in Deerpark, Orange County, New York, along with her mother, Eliza Ballade. The sampler was worked in silk and pen and ink on linen and is in excellent condition. It has been conservation mounted and is in its original mahogany frame.Sampler size: 20%u201d x 17%u00bc%u201d Frame size: 23%u00be%u201d x 21%u201d Price: $9000.23Sarah E. Ballade, Niagara, New York, circa 1840Provenance: Collection of Betty Ring