A Piece Constructed Silk Bag: Mid Nineteenth Century Cloth

mid to late nineteenth century
9" x 8" x 8", 23 cm x 20 cm x 20 cm

This is a good sized, piece-constructed drawstring bag hand stitched from individual pieces of 19th century, botanically dyed katazome silks in complex, spirited patterns: notice the indigo blues, the benibana or safflower oranges and the brown toned dyes all of which attest to the vegetal origins of the dyes.

The spirit of this bag is high: it is really lovely to look at and is beautifully hand stitched with well-chosen, fragments of stencil dyed cloth, around 10 pieces in total.

The portion of the bag where the string is drawn through is done in safflower dyed silk. This area of the bag needs a little repair. The drawstring is probably not original to the bag.

Besides the obvious beauty of this bag it is worthwhile noting that the silks on the bag are all in good condition with no holes, wear or loss: quite remarkable for a bag of this age. Judging from the quality of the silks that compose this bag it appears they all date from the mid nineteenth century.

This bag may have been a komebukuro or a bag that was used to present a token amount of rice or beans to a temple or shrine during a festival, however it may have been destined for another use.

Really, really lovely and recommended.