Very Naive 19th Century New England Alphabet Sampler with Zig Zag on (Equally Expressive) Homespun carved wooden stick watercolor and ink bright and

watercolor and ink bright and crisp and bold

Wear to the box and lightly used

) It was the top photo here that drew me

which is invariably full of fine and unusual things

with the name William Henry Rivers (or similar

Very Naive 19th Century New England Alphabet Sampler with Zig Zag on (Equally Expressive) Homespun carved wooden stick watercolor and ink bright andSo many different sorts of samplers to love, for different reasons. As far as alphabet samplers go (simple ones like this are also called marking samplers), I see a lot of lovely early examples around New England, with precisely embroidered, densely packed letters marching along perfectly straight lines, and I do very much admire them. But much less often do I come across an example as naive, and so, as expressive, as this one. And I think small ones