BRISTOL, ENGLAND ASHLEY DOWN ORPHANAGE PICTORIAL NEEDLEWORK SAMPLER, silk on linen, seven alphabet and numeral rows above various fine pictorial motifs including the Bible, anchors, a three-mast ship, floral wreaths, buildings, a dog, and a butterfly, signed "A Pullan / No 5 Orphan House / Ashley Down / Bristol / 1880." in the bottom center. Housed under UV glass and conservation mounted in a modern frame. This lot includes genealogical research. Dated 1880. 9 1/8" x 11 5/8" sight, 11 7/8" x 14 3/8" OA. Very good overall condition with light toning and spotting, light fading and fugitive color to some thread, frame with minor wear. Not examined out of frame. Published: M. Finkel & Daughter - Samplings: XXV, p. 18. Provenance: From the collection of Nick Routson, Phoenix, AZ.M. Finkel & Daughter, 1/20/2005 (retains dealer label). Catalogue Note: Ada Pullan was born on July 18, 1864 in Hanover Square, London, Middlesex, England to parents Alfred Arthur and Charlotte Child Pullan, who both died of Phthisis in 1876 and 1877. They left behind Ada and her two siblings, Maud Charlotte and Alfred Percy Child, who were all admitted to Ashley Down in 1877. Ada spent four years at the orphanage before she left on August 8, 1881 to live with her grandmother, who was an Upper Servant at 10 Hanover Road, and to do domestic work. M. Finkel & Daughter noted "[t]here is a small group of very well-documented and highly sought-after samplers that were worked in the Muller Orphanage of Bristol, England, from the 1860s through the 1890s. Large numbers of orphans were housed and educated in this institution which counted over 2000 occupants upon completion of its fifth house, Ashley Down in the late 1870s.The samplers worked at this school are highly recognizable and renowned for their great precision and minute detail. Hallmarks of these samplers are the rows of alphabets in various fonts and motifs that can include the Holy Bible, sailing ship, little houses, baskets, tiny dogs, anchors, butterflies, and wreaths... The great majority of known Bristol Orphanage samplers were worked in red silk; the use of an assortment of colors renders this sampler even more interesting and of greater rarity."