A Fukusa or Uchishiki of Repurposed Luxury Kimono Cloth: 18th Century Embroidery

late eighteenth century
17 1/4" x 16 1/2", 43.75 cm x 42 cm

This square precious cloth is fashioned from five pieces of finely woven hemp or ramie cloth that has been embroidered with silk floss, couched with gold thread, and selectively dyed with faux shibori designs. It is backed with mottled blue-toned silk.

The five pieces that create the surface of this piece seem to have been hand stitched together while the borders that attach to the backing have been machine stitched.

These are fragments from a katabira or a kind of hyper-elegant, unlined summer garment worn by women in the upper echelon of Japanese society. Katabira of this era for samurai women are distinctive in their decoration and usually had a kind of distinguishing "look" about them: this fragment beautifully captions the decorative and integral essence of this kind of katabira.

It is woven from the finest asa or bast fiber and there is a crepe texture to the cloth. This superior material, more than likely the finely woven ramie fiber cloth Ojiya chijimi, was probably sent to Kyoto where the dyed, couched and embroidered decoration were applied.

The piece configured as we see it here was most likely used as a fukusa--an elegant covering cloth for gifts or tea ceremony implements in some cases--or as an uchishiki, an ecclesiastical type of cloth used in Buddhist altars.

There are generous areas gold couching which aid in depicting stylized chrysanthemums. Purple toned, green tinged and orange colored silk embroidery were all dyed in natural colors: the purple tone is achieved by dyeing in gromwell root, the orange is safflower derived and the green is of over dyed indigo.

The cloth of this fragment is still beautifully clear in appearance and any faint mottling of the undyed areas that is seen in the photos here is just an unfortunate trick of light.

The areas of embroidery are all in good condition. 

This is a spectacularly beautiful recombination of a super luxurious cloth from what had to have been a remarkably fine kimono from the late 18th century.

Recommended--and how beautiful would this look framed.