Jane Kimball’s book discusses these in more depth, but suffice to say the US sent food aid to occupied Belgium, amongst which was sacks of flour from US mills. Typically these sacks would have the name and logo of the mill printed on them in a monochrome outline design. The grateful Belgians started to embroider these designs, filling in the simple logos and embellishing them with flags, dates etc. The majority were sent back to the US through ‘official’ channels, and thus ended up in ‘official’ collections (i.e. Museums), but a few are in private hands, including the example below ! This is all embroidered except the lilies, which are painted.
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