Embroidered Sampler

Barbara Landis

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Compared to Barbara Beiler's sampler made seventeen years earlier (34.100.216), Barbara Landis's example shows more of the influence of her English-speaking neighbors. Barbara Landis was a member of the Mennonite sect, and German would have been spoken in her home. Her family, however, must have had some interaction with neighbors outside their immediate group, since Barbara's rather awkwardly spelled motto is traditionally found on samplers made by girls who lived in Pennsylvania's English community. The use of a house as a central motif is also very rare in Pennsylvania German samplers and again illustrates links Barbara must have had with the wider world.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art