17th c. paper cutouts found under floorboards

Tiny printed paper figures cut out by schoolgirls in the 17th century were discovered under the floorboards of Sutton House in Hackney, East London, and are now on display for the first time. The cutouts were discovered during a restoration of the Tudor manor house in the 1980s, but they were mixed in with hundreds of other papers, textile fragments, bones, rubble and assorted debris. They were all put in storage uncatalogued.

Last year, volunteers took on the daunting project of going through bags and bags of random things that accumulate under floor planks. The smallest of the objects were the paper cutouts. Papercutting began to take root as a hobby in late 17th century Britian but very few examples from that early period have survived. There are eight in this collection, including a folded paper star, a hand-colored red fox, a woman bathing, a hen with green and pink silk decorations, a black-and-white bird and a couple in country clothing.

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. […]

Dr Isabella Rosner, an expert in early modern material culture, identified the paper cuttings at Sutton House which are almost identical to only two other known surviving examples, one of which is a decorative box dating to the 1680s held in a collection at Witney Antiques in Oxfordshire.

She explained: “Paper cutting for decoration was a subject in various household management books for women in the 17th century, notably by Hannah Woolley, such as ‘A Guide to Ladies’ (1668) and ‘A Supplement to the Queen-Like Closet (1674). She described the ‘cutting of Prints, and adorning Rooms or Cabinets, or Stands with them,’ as skills which ‘I shall be willing to impart to them, who are desirous to learn.’”

First built in 1535 by Ralph Sadleir, aide to Thomas Cromwell and diplomat in the service of Margaret Tudor, sister of King Henry VIII, the brick house is one of the last Tudor homes remaining in London. It was a girls’ school from 1657 and continued to be an educational institution off and on through 1875.

The paper cutouts are now on display at Sutton House and will be exhibited there until December.

* This article was originally published here