A Length of Faded and Softened Katazome Cotton: Swallows in the Rain

late nineteenth century
49" x 13", 124.5 cm x 33 cm

What a wonderfully unusual--and poetic--repeat pattern that is stencil resist dyed on this cloth. It shows swallows in driving rain.

The hand spun, hand woven cotton cloth is quite faded and therefore the repeat pattern is softened by age and wear.

It is interesting to note that the pattern is resist dyed on both its sides, which makes for a much more difficult dyeing process than were it stencil resist dyed only on one side of the cloth.

Every other swallow image is tinted with an orange dye which is now faded as is the rest of the cloth. The other swallow images are tinged with a grey dye.

There are two small holes to the piece and a few nicks, the larger of the two holes is shown on the second image here.

This is a fantastically beautiful length of old katazome dyed cotton and one that bears a distinctive, rare pattern.