Threads of Feeling - The Foundling Museum, London, UK

The following was posted by Jill on the BQTHL Yahoo Group (British Quilt and Textile History List) and I thought it well worth a mention. 

"A poignant, and fascinating, exhibition, 'Threads of Feeling', will be starting on October 14th and running until 6th March 2011, at the Foundling Museum in London. The exhibition was curated by John Styles. The exhibition will be showing, for the first time, textiles from the largest collection of everyday textiles surviving in Britain  from the 18th century". They are tokens left by mothers who handed their  babies into the care of the Foundling hospital, items which were meant to identify children, whose names were wiped from existence. Often the token merely consisted of a scrap of the mothers clothing, a ribbon, or snippet cut from the child's own clothing. These bits form an archive of textiles from everyday people."

"The Foundling Museum tells the story of the Foundling Hospital, London's first home for abandoned children and of three major figures in British history: its campaigning founder the philanthropist Thomas Coram, the artist William Hogarth and the composer George Frideric Handel. This remarkable collection of art, period interiors and social history is now housed in a restored and refurbished building adjacent to the original site of the Hospital, demolished in 1928."


www.foundlingmuseum.org.uk

http://www.foundlingmuseum.org.uk/future_exhibitions.php_