Embroidered Sampler

A major maritime center and hub of the import and export of goods, Newport, Rhode Island was among one of the earliest and most enduring sources of refined sampler styles (see also 2010.356). One of the first American samplers to enter The Met’s collection, this sampler has a wool ground that was compromised by moth damage before it entered the collection. Yet, Elizabeth Easton’s embroidery still reflects the city’s distinguished eighteenth-century needlework tradition. Its format includes two alphabets, a central house flanked by an elegantly dressed couple, a poignant verse, and a scrolling floral border culminating at top with a large songbird. It is a design established in Newport by the 1770s and modified into the early nineteenth century. Especially noteworthy are the fashionable costumes of the figures: the men wear a coat, waistcoat, and breeches, and the women’s dresses emulate imported textiles characterized by stripes and floral sprigs.

Elizabeth Easton was likely the daughter of Newport residents, Benjamin Easton (1752-1807) and Elizabeth Holmes Easton (1753-1838). Her father descended from John Easton (1624-1705) a Quaker founder of Newport and early Governor of Rhode Island. In 1807, Elizabeth married Newport merchant, Moses Thurston (1780-1832), whose family were descendants of seventeenth-century Rhode Island settlers. The couple’s three children, Sarah Ann, Abby G. and William Bradford, were born between 1809 and 1815. Elizabeth’s sampler reflects the genteel education provided to the young women of Newport due to the town’s mercantile-based wealth and sophistication.