Here Flora Reigns
date: label: date made
content: 1809
name: label: sister of maker
content: Dexter, Lucy
label: maker
content: Dexter, Almira
notes: label: Description
content: After a young lady learned to embroider a sampler, she might attend a female academy to make a silk embroidered picture. This was a more challenging technique that became popular in the early 1800s. Subjects included classical, biblical, and historical scenes, as well as mourning pictures.
label: Description
content: This oval embroidery shows a young woman draping a garland of roses over a monument whose front bears the legend, "HERE FLORA REIGNS" printed on a glued oval of paper. The monument is embellished with flakes of mica. In the foreground are low-growing plants, some of them surrounded by areas of seed-stitching characteristic of embroidery done at Abby Wright's school in South Hadley, Massachusetts. To the left, behind a tall tree, is a painted town com¬posed of white buildings with red or black roofs and doors (another typical motif of this school). The embroidered oval is edged by three rows of silver wire twisted to make a square band. Beyond this band the border is embroidered with a garland of roses across the top, and a garland of lilies, tulips, and daisies across the bottom and up the sides. In the lower right corner, beyond all of the embroidery, is a very faint inscription (in ink?): "Almira D." The picture is stitched on an ivory twilled-silk ground with silk thread. The stitches used are satin, long and short, seed, stem, straight, French knot, and couching.
label: Description
content: This embroidery was not done in South Hadley at Abby Wright’s school, but in Claremont, New Hampshire, with the teacher Sophia Goodrich. Sophia was a half sister to Abby Wright and attended Abby’s school in South Hadley, Massachusetts in 1804. In November 1809, she returned to take over the school. “Here Flora Reigns” is from a poem entitled “Burbage” written by English poet Frances Greensted and published in 1796.
label: Description
content: Almira Dexter was born October 6, 1794, to David and Parnel Strobridge Dexter in Claremont, New Hampshire. Almira married Moses Wheeler in about 1831, as his second wife. She died April 5, 1858. (See her sister Lucy’s embroidery).
label: Description
content: For more information about this embroidery see <i>Piecework,</i> March/April 2007, “Three American Schoolgirl Silk Embroideries from the Smithsonian” by Sheryl De Jong.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New Hampshire, Claremont
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Textiles
label: See more items in
content: Embroidered Pictures
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content: Textiles
publisher: label: Related Publication
content: Ring, Betty. Girlhood Embroidery, American Samplers & Pictorial Needlework
label: Related Publication
content: PieceWork
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: The Eleanor and Mabel van Alstyne Marsh American Folk Art Collection
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: TE.T19365
label: catalog number
content: T19365
label: accession number
content: 261195
objectType: label: Object Name
content: silk picture
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: silk (ground material)
label: Physical Description
content: silk (thread material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 22 3/8 in x 29 1/4 in; 56.8325 cm x 74.295 cm