Handmade Romanian traditional silk shawl with red hand embroidery

Traditional vintage silk towel from Romania (raw silk obtained from silk worms), hand-embroidered with red, black, and yellow cotton thread. The traditional towel is 4 meters ( 4 yds ) long and 55 cm wide ( 21.65 " ). It is woven on a traditional loom and is very old. It's a rarity at such dimensions.

It has never been used; however, it has a 1 cm fraying at the bottom edge near the hem and some yellow stains here and there, likely due to color transfer from another material during storage; please carefully check the pictures. In reality, when displayed on the wall, the stains are not very noticeable as they are faint, and the towel is richly ornamented.

These Romanian folk textiles were used to decorate rural interiors: walls with icons, walls with painted ceramics and windows. They were given as valuable gifts to the most esteemed guests of the house or to the bridal couple (godparents) at weddings and baptisms. People of more modest means had embroidered linen towels, while the most precious ones, reserved for the wealthy, were embroidered on silk (raw silk) like this one .