Circa 1920 | China
An antique Chinese silk hand embroidered shawl with long hand knotted silk fringe. These silk shawls, sometimes called Chinese or Manila shawls, were popular in the early 20th century and were a garment worn by fashionable women (see The Gen).
The shawl is profusely and beautifully embroidered with birds, butterflies, blossoms and camellias on a pale cream ground. The majority of the silk is decorated which ensures that regardless of the drape, embroidery is always visible. The design is reversible with the back almost identical in finishing to the front. An exceptional shawl.
DIMENSIONS: 132 x 132 cm, 56 cm knotted fringe.
CONDITION: In very good original condition. The threads retain their vibrant colour. There are a couple of minors stains which are to be expected.
REFERENCES: For an example of a shawl with very similar design, including flowers and birds, see The Met Museum, Object Number C.I.51.66.1.
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THE GEN
“It became a convention for titled élégantes of the day such as Lady Warrander, The Marchioness of Milford Haven and Lady Kathleen Rollo, to be photographed for fashion and society magazines swathed in either Chinese or Spanish embroidered shawls, lending an exotic appeal to their appearance. Portrait painters frequently used shawls as props and, in the rendering of a shawl’s complexities of texture, colour and drape, they exhibited their artistic dexterity. These seductive, highly decorative textiles undoubtedly appealed to the bohemian instincts of artistic coteries.” (‘The Cosmopolitan Heroine’– The Shawl in the 1920s, Valerie Mendes, The Journal of Decorative Arts Society 1850 – the Present, 1994, No. 18, pp 71–72)
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