Viva La Plume! Rhoda Goodrich's Early 19th Century Red and Black Ink Penmanship Sampler hand-painted object but no splits or cracks

but no splits or cracks and still looks terrific

used to support a needle during the process of knitting

I'm forever looking for antique sets of geometric solids made by Prangs or Milton Bradley

and what has brought them together here

I've got a special weakness for paintings of apples

Viva La Plume! Rhoda Goodrich's Early 19th Century Red and Black Ink Penmanship Sampler hand-painted object but no splits or cracksPhotos don't do much justice to this one a fight with glare and so not especially well lit when I was shooting it but hopefully details give a decent sense. Found in Pennsylvania this summer, it is a very early 1800s penmanship exercise, executed across a two page laid paper folio, in a roughly period frame, as found. And I must say the Viva La Plume in red inked fraktur lettering at top pretty much sold me right away! Then two main passages,