Casgliadau Arlein

Souvenir printed linen tea towel to commemorate the Investiture of the Prince of Wales, Caernarfon Castle, 1969. Designer unknown but accepted by the Council of Industrial Design. Purchased in St David's, Pembrokeshire in 1969.

A red dragon rampant against a deep blue backround, holding with his left paw the Royal Standard of the Prince of Wales: a shield with the following heraldic description: "quarterly, Or and Gules four lions passant guardant counterchanged" ('or' and 'gules' referring to gold and red, respectively). The dragon stands on a brown mound on which are the printed words: 'Investiture of The prince of Wales Caernarvon Castle 1962'. The image is printed in blue, 2 shades of red, yellow, brown and black.

There is a 1.5-2.5 wide margin around all four edges of the tea towel which is unprinted apart from the black inscription along the bottom edge: 'ALL PURE LINEN' and 'ACCEPTED BY THE COUNCIL OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN'.

There is a self-adhesive paper sticker in the lower proper left corner of the tea towel. It is shaped like a triangle with rounded corners and is subdivided into 4 quarters which alternate between black and white. It bears the inscription: 'as selected for the DESIGN CENTRE LONDON'.

The fabric of the tea towel is tabby woven linen with selvages along top and bottom and narrow double turn backs held in place with machine stitches using white thread.