BOSTON, MASS. – Fewer than six examples of Seventeenth Century American needlework are known. One, auctioned by Skinner on March 1, was destined to cause excitement. The Massachusetts embroidery descended in the maker’s family over the past three centuries before selling to Connecticut dealer David Schorsch for $903,000, a figure that boosted Skinner’s bottom line to $2,066,526. Sarah Phillips stitched the 17¼-by-24¼-inch picture on a blue-green linen ground around 1670. The picture’s central motif is a tree of life. Other elements include a prodigal son, a brick building facade with a mica window, a cloud, a rainbow, a winsome flock of sheep, trees, flowers, insects and a beaver. Bidding on the needlework opened at $400,000. Schorsch, who was underbid by the phone, told Antiques and The Arts Weekly that, while he is not a needlework dealer, “This sampler’s folk art sensibilities appealed to me. It made me smile. To me, most early samplers have an English feeling but I see in this one the flowering of something uniquely American.”
ONLINE NOW, begins closing JUNE 9 @ 7 PM auctionninja.com/edward-beattie-auctioneers HAMPTON FALLS, NH • 603-770-9878 beattie An Olde Time Country Sale A fine lot of fresh goods from a Hampton […]
