Embroidered lace souvenir from a silk postcard

Rectangular section of lace with two crossed Italian flags embroidered in red, white and green cotton.

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 popularity of silk postcards peaked during the First World War and a thriving cottage industry began around 1915. 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 designed like envelopes, which could contain a smaller card with a sentimental message, a handkerchief or items such as this Italian embroidered flag on cotton lace. Production continued steadily through World War I, declining substantially in 1919, until ending around 1923. An estimated 10,000,000 hand made cards were produced from 1915 to 1919.