Skip to content
Pitt Rivers Museum
AboutHire the MuseumNewsletterUniversity of Oxford

1940.7.56

Sampler with floral decoration, text, and "Mary Bradshaw 1748".

1940.7.56

Digital asset copyright: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

Terms and Conditions

If you wish to order a high-resolution image and/or licence its use for print or web publication, exhibition, film, promotional product or any other use, whether in the academic or commercial sector of any print run, then please visit photographic services.

Collection type
Object
Description
Sampler with floral decoration, text, and "Mary Bradshaw 1748".
Person
Maker Mary Bradshaw
Field collector Unknown Collector
PRM source Joseph Grafton Milne
Date / Period
Date made: 1748
Date collected
1748 - 1940
Acquisition information
Donated: 1940
Materials and processes
Material Linen Flax Bast Fibre Textile Plant, Process Woven, Material Silk Yarn Animal, Process Stitched
Dimensions
Length x Width: max 330 x 230 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 1940.7.56
Research and responses

The text in the centre of the sampler reads:

Content I am is fortune good or bad

Nothing can make me merry nothing sad

And all my happiness consists in this

My mind is equal as my fortune is

And he that brings his mind to his estate

O what can make that man unfortunate

The words 'sad', 'estate', and 'unfortunate' are stitched over several lines on the right-hand side of the sampler, suggesting Mary Bradshaw ran out of room to fit the sentences onto one line.

This was provenanced under England in the geographical card catalogue [AP 19/06/2006]

Search terms: Textile, Sampler, Embroidery

Further items to explore