Embroidered sampler depicting the Foundling Hospital in 1763

This is the first depiction by a child of the Foundling Hospital to enter the museum's collection. The artist was 10 year-old Sarah Ann Quartermain who was probably a foundling. Needlework was a major part of the girls' education at the Hospital and samplers are a unique personal example of a young girl's needlework accomplishments. Her image has been adapted from a print of 1763, separating and flattening out each of the building's various elements -chapel, boys' and girls' wings, the forecourt, the side colonades, the front gate - all peopled with naively scaled carriages, visitors and foundling children as well as bystanders and a couple strolling a dog.