A Beautifully Colored and Designed Komebukuro

FEATURED ON BUREAU OF TRADE

late nineteenth, early twentieth century
as shown: 6" x 8" x 8", 15 cm x 20 cm x 20 cm

Komebukuro are bags that were used to bring token offerings of uncooked rice or beans to a temple or shrine festival, the piecing and patching often being thought-out and planned, for festive effect.

This one is a particularly fine example.  It is composed of 23 separate pieces of cloth, both indigo dyed hemp or ramie as well as pink cottons, the rose color the result of being dyed in safflower or benibana as its known in Japan. Both cotton and hemp or ramie fragments are hand stitched. The cotton drawstring is intact and is original to the bag, as are the loops that hold it.   It is lined in undyed cotton cotton.

This is an especially good, rustic komebukuro, which shows good age, good hand stitching and fine fragments of recycled cloth.