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Friday 23 December 2011

Parchment Sampler

Now in a private collection, this very fine parchment sampler of the Ten Commandments and Creed was painstakingly cut by John Sparling 1729. I don't know if there are any others like this out there, but I would be very interested to know. Is this a gendered exercise - the equivalent of a stitched sampler?

1 comment:

  1. HI -- here in the states this type of scissor or knife cutting -- which I assume that's what it is -- is fairly commonplace and I believe both genders made it. I have to say that the more intense pieces seem to have been made by men, though I am not an expert. There seems to have been some popularity among the Quakers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and the Germans here in Pennsylvania also frequently made these pieces, which are called Scherenschnitte. I may be off base with this but it appears to be the same kind of thing as what we see here in the U.S. Candace Perry

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