WWI silk postcard with flowers and 'Souvenir'

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c. 1915

Overview

Embroidered silk postcard in vertical orientation sent home as a souvenir from France by a soldier during World War One. The silk insert has the word 'Souvenir' sewn in yellow thread on the diagonal in the lower right corner, above which is a small bouquet of red white and blue flowers with yellow leaves tied together with a red white and blue ribbon. The use of these three patriotic colours representing the Empire is significant. The flowers appear to be depictions of a red poppy, a white daisy and a blue cornflower.
The surrounds are made from embossed cream card with a decorative pattern of geometric lines.
The reverse has a central line and the French words 'Carte Postale', 'Correspondance' and 'Adresse' printed in black ink. There are remnants of a message written in pencil which has either faded over time or has been deliberately erased.

Historical information

According to the Australian War Memorial, woven silk postcards were first produced in Krefeld, Germany in 1898 as a combination of printed postcards and large woven silk pictures, known as Stevengraphs. The early cards were woven on machines. Being machine made, the woven cards always maintained a high standard.
Embroidered silk postcards were first made in 1900 for the Paris Exposition. The popularity of silk postcards peaked during World War One. A thriving cottage industry began around 1915 and the quality of the early silks was quite high. However later, to satisfy demand, the workmanship was often not quite as high.
Postcard companies began to employ women to produce silks on a rough assembly line basis. The cards were generally hand embroidered on strips of silk mesh with as many as 25 on a strip. They were mostly embroidered by French women in their homes and then sent to the factories for cutting and mounting on postcards.
Some postcards were made with little envelopes which could contain a smaller card with a sentimental message.
Production continued steadily through World War One, declining substantially in 1919, until ending around 1923. An estimated 10,000,000 hand made cards were produced from 1915 to 1919.

There are a large number of silk postcards in the collection, including several groupings relating to individual soldiers and their families.

Details

Registration number

cwa-org-119-RoW00656

Item type

Themes