Your Parents Strict Attention Pay: Sampler

Artisan: Janice Mansfield
Date: 1998
Inscriptions: with printed label on the back of the frame: ‘Worked by Janice Mansfield in 1998. This miniature is closely based on a full size original.’
Dimensions: 60 x 70 x 4 mm. / 2 ⅜ x 2 ¾ x ⅛ inches (height x width x depth)
Inventory number: 2022.113
Intended Room: Schoolroom
Category: Embroidery

Provenance: with Claire Lees; from whom purchased by us via eBay in 2022.

This wonderful little sampler is worked on an especially fine weave, and caught my eye both for its design – which I had never seen before – and the verse included at the top, which I thought would be absolutely perfect for the Schoolroom. It isn’t the easiest to read, so I’ll transcribe it here: ‘Your parents strict attention pay, / And give them rev’rence due, / Return their kindness day by day, / And be a Christian true‘. At the bottom we read ‘Elizabeth Indales work. Aged 8 Years 1832.’ The main design shows a house flanked by deer, trees and birds, with baskets of flowers along the bottom; there’s even a delicate abstract border which suggests a row of pink roses.

It’s absolutely delightful and the embroiderer has kindly attached a label to the back of the frame to identify herself. ‘Worked by Janice Mansfield in 1998. This miniature is closely based on a full size original.‘ I can’t find out anything about Janice Mansfield, so I don’t know if she is a familiar name to miniature collectors or simply a very talented lady who decided to shrink a favourite sampler to 1:12 size. But the result is exquisite.