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I'm not even sure if this was created in Asia. It is an embroidered? cloth, which looks as if it is made with real gold thread. Your help would be very much appreciated.
The size is 6 3/4" x 12 3/4".
I've had this piece for forty years.
I'm sorry that I had to photograph it under glass. I didn't feel that I should take it out of it's frame.
Thanks again,
Regards, Jimmy

The Butterflies are Chinese emblems of happy and productive marriage, though the piece was not necessarily made in China. I'm unsure what its original function was meant to be, perhaps a mat to protect a dining table, or a doily for the arm of an overstuffed chair. Many such textile creations come in larger sets in tourist gift shops around Asia, with some later winding up in frames on Western walls. Most of the needlework is devoted to couching the gold threads into their meandering motif. Embroidery stitches in the flowers and butterfly bodies constitute a minority of the labor. Difficult to say from the pictures whether there's any metallic thread involved, or if the golden gleam comes only from the threads. If metallic thread is present, real gold is the last thing I'd expect it to be.

Best regards,

Bill

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