Mary Balch (1762–1831) taught in Providence for 45 years, during which time her students produced superb samplers and silk embroideries. As fashions changed, Balch responded with new designs. Between 1797 and 1799, samplers at the Balch school became bolder and simpler as bowls of fruit replaced the figures found in earlier work. As the neoclassical style took hold around 1800, silk embroideries supplanted samplers at the school, and the bowls of fruit that had earlier appeared in the samplers were instead worked in silk threads on a silk satin ground. This silk embroidery is attributed to Esther Abbott on the basis of its similarity to that of Elizabeth Abbott (1786–1839), who is believed to have been her sister and a fellow student at the Balch school.