Paper Cuttings Made by 17th-Century Schoolgirls Discovered Beneath Floorboards

In the 17th century, girls attending a London boarding school learned to make decorative paper cuttings. Several of these creations—including a tiny fox, a star and a hen—survived for 350 years beneath the floorboards of Sutton House, a historic building that once functioned as a school for upper- and middle-class girls.

The papers, along with hundreds of other artifacts, were finally recovered during renovations in the 1980s. However, no one cataloged these objects until last year, when a team of volunteers sorted through them. This week, Sutton House will publicly display the paper cuttings for the first time.

Due to the flimsy material, experts were surprised to find them intact. According to Isabella Rosner, an expert in early modern material culture, only a few other examples of such art are known to exist.

“It’s an art form that is discussed in 17th-century domestic manuals, but there is very little material survival—three examples from 17th-century England, of which this is one,” Rosner tells the Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood.

Sutton House’s girls’ school was founded in 1657. At the time, providing formal education for girls was a “relatively new concept,” as Kate Simpson, a senior collections officer at the National Trust, tells the Guardian.

The school provided lessons in writing, reading, math, music and art. The girls studied paper cutting alongside other crafts, such as embroidery and needlework. Instructors showed them how to cut paper designs from a book and hand-color them. The finished products were used as decorations on boxes, bowls and more.

Researchers think that Hannah Woolley, an established 17th-century author of books on house management, once worked at the school—and perhaps even taught the girls paper cutting.

In her books, Woolley “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,’” says Rosner in a statement from the National Trust. “It is possible the paper cutouts identified were carried out by preteen and teenage girls under her tutelage.”

The paper cuttings, which feature personal touches from the girls who made them, are all unique. The colorful pink hen, for example, is misspelled as “a hean,” per the Art Newspaper’s Maev Kennedy.

“We have long known about the role of Sutton House as a girls’ school over its lifetime, but with few details about the classes, the pupils or teaching,” says Simpson in the statement. “This discovery brings to vivid life one of the skills that pupils were taught and the painstaking process of handling, cutting and coloring such tiny pieces of paper.”

The cuttings will be on view at Sutton House in London from July 19 through December.

Julia Binswanger | READ MORE

Julia Binswanger is a freelance arts and culture reporter based in Chicago. Her work has been featured in WBEZ, Chicago magazine, Rebellious magazine and PC magazine.