I. Koudhaar - Embroidery - 42 cm - 41.5 cm - Dutch sampler 1844

A well-preserved framed sampler or embroidery with multicolored patterns and text in (wool) embroidery thread. The sampler shows symbolic figures, the left and right sides are more or less mirrored, with Christian symbols, IHS flanked by lanterns, a man and a woman by a tree (Adam and Eve?), two roosters and various floral motifs. Centrally a large flower pot and a ship with, oddly enough, two dark-skinned crew members. At the top the name of the maker I. Koudhaar and the date 1844; the whole is enclosed by an embroidered floral border and set in a mahogany veneer frame. The sampler is after 182 years somewhat discolored and stained but by no means seriously so; the photos are partly taken with flash and partly without, the true color lies somewhere in between.