Rare samplers with a Stewartry connection thought to have been embroidered by Robert Burns’ mum and sister are to be conserved for the nation.
The National Trust for Scotland was helped to secure them at auction for the poet’s birthplace in Alloway thanks to funding from American collector and philanthropist Leslie B Durst.
The samplers had been held in a private collection in the south of England for many decades before they recently came up for auction, after being found hidden away in an old wooden box at the owner’s house in Dorset.
Charterhouse Auctioneers & Valuers said they both came to auction “from a direct descendant of the Rev George MacNaughton”, who was minister at Carsphairn from 1890 to 1925.
Conservators are currently working with specialist textile experts to assess the condition of the two samplers, before finalising plans for treatment and framing so that they can be safely displayed and shared with the public.
The samplers, featuring intricate embroidery of the alphabet, coronets and floral and animal motifs, are attributed to the poet’s mother, Agnes Broun, and his youngest sister, Isabella Burns (later Isabella Begg).
The frames of the samplers also tell an interesting story, as faded handwritten labels provide an insight into how the samplers passed from the Burns family into the ownership of Dumfries and Galloway’s MacNaughton family and were loaned for the Scottish Exhibition in Glasgow in 1911 – backed by its catalogue.
Both samplers still retain their original exhibition labels on the back and reveal that the Reverend George F A MacNaughton from The Manse, Carsphairn, Kirkcudbrightshire, was the one who loaned them to the exhibition.
The inscription attached to the mount of the larger sampler was written to Mrs MacNaughton by Isabella Burns Begg – the poet’s niece and daughter of Isabella Burns – and reads “the dear sampler was my Grandmother’s the Poet’s Mother … I B B”. National Trust for Scotland senior curator Sarah Beattie said: “The labels suggest they were given to Mrs MacNaughton, the wife of the Reverend George MacNaughton, by Isabella Burns Begg – the poet’s niece.
“Isabella died in 1886 so they were probably passed on in the early 1880s after the MacNaughtons were married but before Isabella’s death.
“Whether this was a gift or purchase is sadly unknown, but it is interesting to see how Burns’s descendants contributed to the memorialisation of his life, work and legacy in the decades that followed his death.”
She added: “Also fascinating is the later history of the samplers, for they then became part of the fabric of Scotland’s wider history. Both featured in the grand Palace of History at the Scottish Exhibition in Glasgow in 1911, which showcased historic and cultural items from public and private collections across Scotland.
“Agnes Broun’s sampler still has the original early 20th century frame and both have the labels from that exhibition, showing that they were loaned by Reverend MacNaughton.
“Through such details and their histories, these samplers enrich our Burns collections and allow us to explore new areas of social history and women’s history through the life of Burns and his family, and we look forward to conserving them and sharing them with visitors and supporters.”
