circa 1820s, signed along bottom "Ann Deas Work", silk embroidery on silk, sight 23-1/4 x 16 in.; in likely later 19th century wood frame, approx. 19-1/4 x 22 x 1 in.

Provenance: Private Tennessee Collection

Note: According to consignor notes, Ann Horry Deas Lesesne (1812-1850), was a member of a prominent plantation owning and political family in South Carolina. Her father, a Scottish immigrant, served several terms in the South Carolina General Assembly before going on to serve as a senator for nearly ten years. He married Margaret Horry, and of their thirteen children, only nine would survive to adulthood. Ann, the youngest surviving daughter, likely wrought this sampler as a young girl, dating this piece to the early 1820s.

In addition to other decorative elements typical of samplers from her time, Ann's sampler includes a house in the iconic architectural style that can still be seen lining the streets of Charleston today -- a "single house" oriented with the gable, or shorter wall of the house, facing the street, with an adjacent piazza.

The sampler also includes several lines of religious verse with some words appearing to be missing, suggesting this piece was unfinished. The first several lines may have been composed by Ann herself, and read "Heaven [is?] our guard and innocents its care/[Nor need?] the just the worst of dangers [?]/It pitties [sic] the defenceless [sic] poor mans grief/And sends him [?] he calls helpe [sic] and [?]/Its [sic] [?] the surest succour [sic] and the best/Delivers and [?] the distressed"

The second verse appears to be a known motto and reads "When [love] and peace together dwell/They make a pallis [sic] of a cell/But where discord rears her head/Every [hope] of comforts [fled]"

Ann married Thomas Allen Lesesne in 1837 when she was 25 and subsequently moved to Mobile, Alabama to a cotton plantation owned by Lesesne. They had five children together before her early passing at the age of 38. Ann is buried in Mobile, Alabama.

A genealogy report and documentation on the family accompany this lot.