A Home Made Sample Book of Large Swatches: Iyo Kasuri

early twentieth century
17 1/2" x 12 1/2", 44 cm x 32 cm

This is a good sized, home made sample book that is composed of 26 pages and contains about 29 large swatches of Iyo kasuri which are all glued down to the pages of this book.

Iyo kasuri was influenced by and is often indistinguishable from Kurume kasuri--and were it not for the page of writing (shown here) which declares that these are fragments of Iyo kasuri from around the Meij era (1868-1912) it would have been assumed these are pieces woven from Kurume on Kyushu. To be honest the fragments included in this book might not all be Iyo kasuri and some might be from Kurume, but that is only a matter of speculation since the book clearly states these samples are from Iyo.

A charming detail about this book is its back cover which shows a faint, hand painted image of young pine done in pale blue paint.

The book seems to be some kind of personal study item and is a wonderful resource for designers, artists or collectors.