Cover of the booklet 'Merklappen. Oud en Nieuw' ("Samplers. Old and New") by Hillegonda Bottema (Kampen, 1942).The new TRC exhibition, Textile Tales from the Second World War, opens next week (16th September 2020). The exhibition contains many objects, almost all of them with a story behind them, some of which are sad and moving, while others are deep, funny and/or intriguing.

Over the next few months we are going to publish a series of blogs about one or more items from the exhibition. These will be written by various people and cover a wide range of subjects.

The first of these blogs is published below. It concerns a series of motifs for embroidery samplers, published in the booklet Merklappen Oud en Nieuw ('Samplers. Old and New') by Hillegonda Bottema (1913-1968; Kampen: J.H. Kok). Kok was the traditional publisher of the staunchly Protestant 'Gereformeerden' in The Netherlands. A copy of the book is in the TRC Library, and now included in the exhibition.

Page 15 in the booklet 'Merklappen. Oud en Nieuw' (Kampen, 1942). The accompanying text at the top of the page reads; "te werken, naar eigen wenschen" (to work as you wish'). The three motifs are identified as follows, from left to right: 1822, Zwolle, Overijssels Museum; 1862, Sins Kruis; 1808, Amsterdam, Janneke de Bok.What makes this book unusual is that it was published in 1942 after the German occupation of The Netherlands in May 1940. By then, paper was beginning to be rationed.

So who gave permission for the booklet to be published and why? We will probably never know. But it may be added that folk art, with supposedly strong 'Germanic' rooots, was generally an acceptable subject for the Nazi occupiers.

The booklet includes a range of motifs found on a variety of eighteenth and nineteenth century Dutch samplers, some of which actually originally worked in Leiden. There are black and white and simple colour charts. Most of the patterns are well known and include tree of life motifs, stylised plants, houses, geometric patterns, as well as designs with religious (Catholic) themes.

Page 17 of the booklet Merklappen. Oud en Nieuw (Kampen, 1942), showing two well-known embroidery motifs: The two Jewish spies returning from the Promised Land; and, to the right, the crucifixion with various details, including a cockerel.In fact, we have had some recent TRC blogs about two of these, namely the men carrying bunches of giant grapes ('De verkenners van Kanaan', originally worked by Janneke de Bok, Amsterdam, in 1808) and another one that depicts the crucifixion of Christ (with the seamless shirt that also appeared on a pilgrim’s badge from Trier in Germany), according to the booklet it was originally worked in Leiden in 1870 with the title 'INRI'. Such a Catholic pattern seems somewhat at odds with the Protestant character of the publisher, but war time would have led to some watering down of former preconceptions.

Band sampler in pristine condition, likely based on a 1942 sampler book (including the pattern on top with the date of 1765) (TRC 2019.2921).All the more intriguing is another sampler, also in the TRC collection (TRC 2019.2921), which patterns, all but one of them also found in the booklet. These include the crucifixion scene, Adam and Eve, the Sacrifice of Isaac, and various floral motifs. The sampler is made on a narrow band of handspun and woven cloth. The embroideries are worked in silk. It is, as reported in an earlier blog, in pristine condition. The sampler includes the date of 1765. But the pattern with the date is also found in the 1942 sampler booklet: the '1765' band sampler is obviously a modern piece of needlework, likely based on the 1942 publication! 

It is noticeable that the booklet gives no details about stitches, etc., but most of the original samplers were probably made using the cross stitch.

Another detail that is missing is any information about what type of cloth and yarns could be used for re-working the samplers and motifs. This may not be so surprising, given the fact that materials and threads were in very short supply and any work would have been based on what was available at home. On top of one of the pages it says: "te werken, naar eigen wenschen." ('to be worked as you wish').

Gilllian Vogelsang, 8 September 2020