A Very Good Quality Two Panel Boro Textile: Futon Cover Fragment

blate nineteenth, early twentieth century
47" x 26", 119.5 cm x 66 cm

This is a very attractive, two panel and nice-sized patched and mended, indigo dyed textile. It is a section of a futon cover.

This is a really good piece and if you are thinking to acquire a boro textile you might want to stop and think about this one.

Shown as it is in the lead photographs we see the proper "inside" of the cloth. The proper "outside" of the side that would would be seen is plain and quite worn indigo dyed cotton, and three images of this are shown as the last photos in this set.

So much of this cloth is good to look at: the hand spun cotton yarns that made up most of the cloth and patching, the contrast of color tones, the piles and puddles of patches. All of these details make for a good quality boro textile. 

As can be expected there are areas that are threadbare and have given way and become a small hole or flaw, but this is all part of appreciating the piece both aesthetically as well as it is appreciating the life force of the piece as we try to imagine how it was used--and who used it.

Recommended.