Flea Market Item 26-305

Antique Hand-Embroidered Whitework Collar — c.1910–1920

A beautiful early 20th-century detachable collar, worked by hand on exceptionally fine, sheer white cotton lawn or batiste.

Vintage Hand-Embroidered Floral Damask Napkins — c.1940s–1950s

A charming collection of 10 vintage damask napkins, each individually decorated with colourful hand-embroidered flowers and finished with a contrasting cotton binding.

The white fabric has a subtle woven geometric damask pattern which catches the light beautifully. Each napkin features its own little botanical motif — daisies, cornflowers, stylised wildflowers, berries and foliage — embroidered in wonderfully bright shades of pink, blue, purple, yellow, red and green.

The embroidery has a lovely handmade quality, predominantly worked in simple satin, stem and straight stitches. Rather than being perfectly uniform, the flowers vary from napkin to napkin, giving the collection the feeling of a domestic embroidery project rather than commercially embroidered table linen.

Perhaps the most appealing detail is the coloured binding around the edges. Cerise, turquoise, violet, pink, yellow, rust, lime and deep blue borders were chosen to complement the embroidery. This colourful treatment, together with the simplified floral designs and strong thread colours, suggests a date of approximately the 1940s–1950s.