Embroidered whitework sampler

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Whitework samplers typically consist of a variety of stitches and lace-making techniques, all stitched in white thread. Based on the small number of documented seventeenth-century embroiderers who made multiple samplers, it is thought that samplers containing whitework, cutwork, drawnwork, and lace designs were stitched only after multi-colored band samplers were finished, as whitework techniques are more difficult. While many surviving English samplers include lace, cutwork, and drawnwork, few examples of seventeenth-century lace have been attributed to English manufacture. This sampler is worked in whitework and reticella, which requires a stitcher to remove warp and weft threads from a piece of fabric before stabilizing the fabric with buttonhole stitches and creating designs based on the grid of the linen. The top of the sampler, worked in satin, eye, and line stitches, features the initials "MD" (presumably the initials of the maker) and an alphabet, along with geometric and stylized floral patterns of varying length. The remainder of the sampler consists of cutwork filled with reticella lace in geometric patterns.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art