AN EARLY VICTORIAN INDIAN NEEDLEWORK ORPHAN SCHOOL SAMPLER

AN EARLY VICTORIAN INDIAN NEEDLEWORK ORPHAN SCHOOL SAMPLER

MARKED BY CHARLOTTE

worked with coloured silks on a linen ground, in cross stitch, with an inscription in Tamil above a verse and signed and dated 'Marked by Charlotte at Mrs Turnbull's Hindoo Orphan girls school-Madras, Jan 1841', in a later glazed frame, the back with a handwritten label, inscribed 'Presented by Mrs Unwin, Walthamstow Lodge, Sevenoaks, Nov 3 '86'

17.1 x 15.2cm

Provenance

Upper Slaughter Manor, The Collection of Micheál and Elizabeth Feller.

Literature

The Feller Needlework Collection: 2, p. 238 for a discussion of this sampler.

Catalogue Note

Mrs Turnbull was the wife of the Reverend Gilbert Turnbull who worked at the London Missionary Society's station in Bangalore. In December 1838 Gilbert became ill and subsequently died ( at the age of 29), however, he implored his wife 'to promote the salvation of the precious souls of the poor degraded Hindoos'. Mrs Turnbull went on to Madras where she took over a boarding school with twenty-five girls.