Ramie table cloth with embroidered borders, China, !920-1940

Table cloth made of white ramie (sometimes called grasscloth). The table cloth is embroidered with two blue borders. One of these goes over the edge, and has a toothed or zig-zag design, and the other further executed in very small cross-stitch. Along the inner border are repeat motifs in coloured cross-stitch of what looks like a sail boat, a peacock, a vase of flowers and a sedan chair carried by two figures.

Given by Patricia L Freund

This textile came into the museum as cotton. It seems more likely to be ramie though it could also be linen as this was imported into China at this time.

There are echoes in this piece of the Chinese blue and white cotton cross-stitch dowry pieces acquired by the museum in the 1920s and 1950s. This table cloth seems to have been a souvenir for sale to visitors to China.

The donor thought it was probably obtained in China by a medical missionary, Miss Florence Gertrude Sutton ( 1890-1977), who worked in Chinas from 1920 to 1924, though she adds that Chinese friends of Miss Sutton might have given it to her later. See RF 1997/1165 for biographical details.

FE.109-1997