A Length of Two-Process Shibori: Desirable White-on-Blue Design

late nineteenth, early twentieth century
55 1/2" x 12 1/2", 141 cm x 31.5 cm

This is a beautifully old length of hand spun, hand woven cotton that has the desirable appeal of showing blue-on-white shibori, in this case we see two shibori techniques which makes this even better.

There are wildly energetic, uneven, diagonal slashes of dark indigo; these marks have the appearance of a storm. As a foil to these fairly random markings is a background of regular, narrow, pale blue stripes which are also done in a shibori technique.

That this length is blue-on-white and also shows two distinct shibori techniques which produce patterns that both clash and create a cohesive design is very desirable in an old piece of shibori.

This was no doubt produced in Arimatsu, a place in Japan known for its many, many family-run shibori dyeworks and was something of a capital of shibori innovation and production for hundreds of years.

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