Description:

Anne's sampler is the quintessential Hawick girl in design and content. Her central flower and vine are quite precise and frame the verse "On Virtue" symmetrically. The pink house is similar to the one by Mary Hope, but is flanked with willow trees instead of rose bushes. The chenille lawn remains quite fluffy. There is room directly beneath the short gold sawtooth band separating the verse and house sections, so perhaps Anne expected to add an additional section of vine here. 

Anne has stitched familial initials (RR, AR, GR, MR, ID, ES, NT, IT, BT) throughout the lower area, adjacent to her curlicue signature. The simple border is also similar the one by Mary Hope, except that Anne has red squares only on the inside sections of the undulations. 

Size (W x H): 13 x 17 1/2 inches

Stitches: Cross, satin, couched, running back, outline, French knot, cross-over-one

Media: Silk on wool

Genealogy:

We have been able to piece together a bit of history thanks to handwritten notes on the back of the frame. Anne was born in about 1833 and married Matthew Young, a linseed crusher, in 1857. Linseed is now more commonly called flaxseed. Their daughter Isabella Hope Young was born in 1859 in Berwick, Northumberland. Isabella married a minister, John Orr, in 1880 and died in 1942 in Edinburgh. 

Verse:

On VIRTUE

VIRTUE Is the chiefest beauty of the mind
The noblest oRnamet of humankind
VIRTUe IS our safeguard and our guIdIng star
That stIR up Reason when our senses eRR

AnnE ROBESOn SEPTEMBER 20