A Length of Indigo Dyed Cotton Boro: Patches and Plaid

early twentieth century
58" x 13", 147 cm x 33 cm

This is a beautiful length of indigo dyed plaid boro cotton whose patches artfully play off the base cloth.

The blue tone is warm, worn and faded and the surface application of the bold patches of different sizes onto the large-scale plaid offers a kind of Hans Hoffmann "push/pull" effect. There are twelve patches, each hand stitched to the base.

It is hard to convey the interesting abstraction of this piece: it looks more like "art" than a "textile" and it would be beautiful if hung to be admired as such.

Please note the vestige of machine stitching in the form of a line of broken white stitches that appear from time to time of the length. It could have been that this length was at one point machine stitched to others in order to form a futon cover. Please note as well that all the patches are hand stitched and are original to the piece.

Really wonderful.