Lost by Schoolgirls: A display of 17th century papercuts.

The following words are not mine, they belong to The National Trust archaeology facebook page, but I really wanted to share this amazing find:

Rare surviving examples of decorative paper cutting by schoolgirls in the 17th century have been identified at Sutton House in London.

The 500-year-old property in Hackney was built for one of Henry VIII’s statesmen, Ralph Sadleir, a close aide of Thomas Cromwell and became known as 'the bryk place'. Over its lifetime it was home to many different families and organisations, including a girls’ school.

©National Trust/ James Dobson

During renovation of the house by the National Trust from the late 1980s, hundreds of pieces of ephemera that had been found under floorboards were carefully stored away. These finds went uncatalogued for over 30 years until last year, when a team of volunteers began to sort through bags of centuries-old builders’ rubble, discarded textiles, paper and bones and other objects which had been lost over time.

Among the finds was a small number of cut-out paper designs, only a few centimetres in size, some hand coloured. Eight of these have been dated to the late 17th century when papercutting as a pastime in the UK was in its infancy and are extremely rare survivals.

Dating from the time when Sutton House was a school for girls, the paper discoveries include an intricate folded paper star, hand-coloured cut-outs of a fox, and a female figure bathing, and a hen with added green and pink silk embellishment, along with black and white cut-outs of a bird and a country couple in clothing of the period. The cutting out of prints in the 17th century was an art form usually undertaken by girls or women and a skill that they could use to showcase their taste and dexterity. Paper folding, as exemplified in the small star identified at Sutton House, was an increasingly popular European fashion especially for elaborate napkin-folding for entertaining. Paper cutting was taught to girls along with other crafts such as embroidery and needlework. Designs from books could be cut out, using tiny pairs of scissors, knives and even pins, and then hand-coloured to use as decoration on boxes and other items.

Read the full story here - National Trust