Art Deco Chinese Canton Silk Embroidered Shawl People w Floral Embroidery As Is

This is a gorgeous Canton silk shawl, beautifully embroidered with a Chinese woman and man amidst a floral design in an art deco influenced style.  The piece is trimmed with a lace and knotted border and fringe. 

Age:  Most likely 1920s, possibly 1930.  You can imagine a flapper wearing this - note the 20s era appearance of the lady’s hairdo in the embroidery.  

Material:  Silk.  The silk has good weight and is of obvious quality.

Sizing: The shawl measures 40” square, exclusive of its lace edge and fringe.  The lace and fringe measure 25” in length, so the overall dimensions would be 90” by 90”. 

Condition: The lace edge is detached from the silk along a 4” length in one place and has a 1/4” separation in another place.  There is a 1 1/4” tear in the area of the 4” detachment.  In addition, there are about 14 small tears or silk separations within the body of the shawl - please see the last close-up photo for two of the larger ones, which measure about 1/4” in length.  Otherwise, the shawl presents itself very well.  If your intent is to frame or display this shawl over a piano or table, i would maybe only re-attach the lace edge.  However, if you want to wear the shawl, I would recommend perhaps reinforcing the small tears or separations with iron-on patching material in order to arrest migration of the tears - because the work is visible only on one side and the tears are so small, the amount of backing material shouldn’t be at all apparent.   

This is a lovely shawl - beautiful quality and an authentic deco era piece, so despite the small problems, a lovely display textile!