Rare West Tennessee Needlework Sampler, Lucy Macon Green

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2022 Summer Fine Art & Antiques (Day 1)

By Case Auctions

Jul 9, 2022

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• Lot Description
  Rare West Tennessee Needlework Sampler, stitched by Lucy Macon Green and dated 1842, silk on linen. Strawberry border enclosing five rows of alphabets and a geometric border over a signature line, LUCY M. GREEN AGE 11 YEARS 1842; two stitched conjoined hearts beside a verse, "Celestial happiness when'er she stoops / To visit earth one shrine - the goddess finds / And one alone to make her sweet amends / For absent heav'n the bosom of a friend." Below is a row of stitched numbers and geometric floral motifs, and the names of her parents, Simon W. Green and Mary M. Green, brother Joseph T. Green, and twin sister Marianna (Mary) H. Green. 1934 note en verso from the stitcher's daughter, bequeathing it to a friend, along with a photograph of a period painting of a woman said to be Lucy Macon Green Wright. Housed in a later ebonized molded frame. Sight: 16" H x 17" W. Framed: 18" H x 18 3/4" W. Note: This sampler, one of fewer than 20 known to have been made in West Tennessee, has been documented by the Tennessee Sampler Survey. Lucy Macon Green and her twin sister Marianna Hunt Green were born in Warren or Guildford County, NC on March 3, 1831 to Simon W. Green (1805-1842) and Mary Hunt Seymour Macon (1809-1840). Around 1835 the family moved to Hardeman County, Tennessee, but Lucy's parents both died about five years later. Her father's will shows he owned 41 slaves and a vast amount of livestock at the time of his death. Lucy likely made her sampler at the Female Academy in Jackson in 1842, the same year her father died. She and her sister were then raised by a guardian, a maternal uncle named Dr. John Tubb Macon, and continued their education at the Jackson Female Academy (which became the Memphis Conference Female Institute  in 1844). Lucy met Dr. Weldon Edwards Wright (himself an orphan) while visiting friends in Memphis. They married in 1854 and after a brief time in Princeton, Arkansas, moved to Little Rock. There he purchased the home of Sen. Solon Borland, and the couple raised four children including Sally Lea Wright Brame (1863-1944), who is believed to have inherited this sampler and gifted it to a friend (see note en verso of sampler). We are grateful to the Tennessee Sampler Survey for providing a packet of genealogical information on Lucy Macon Green Wright, which is available to the winning bidder.
  
  Private Tennessee collection.

  Condition

  Fading, particularly to family member's names and row of numbers; some losses to black thread, primarily in alphabet lines; light toning. Not examined out of frame; does not appear to be adhered to backing.
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