1942.134.13: Katagami Textile Stencil with Fawn Spot (Kanoko) and Bush Clover Design

Identification and Creation

Object Number

1942.134.13

Title

Katagami Textile Stencil with Fawn Spot (Kanoko) and Bush Clover Design

Classification

Artists' Tools

Work Type

stencil

Date

Late Edo-Meiji period, 19th-early 20th century

Places

Creation Place: East Asia, Japan

Culture

Japanese

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/204341

Physical Descriptions

Medium

Chūban (medium-sized) minogami (mulberry bark paper) treated with persimmon juice and cut using the "tsukibori" (thrust-carving) technique, with "ito-ire" (silk-web) reinforcement

Dimensions

paper: H. 31.5 x W. 43.6 cm (12 3/8 x 17 3/16 in.)
pattern unit: H. 19.2 x W. 37.1 cm (7 9/16 x 14 5/8 in.)

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of David M. Matteson, Class of 1893

Accession Year

1942

Object Number

1942.134.13

Division

Asian and Mediterranean Art

Contact

am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu

Permissions

The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request.

Descriptions

Description

Katagami--literally "pattern papers"--are Japanese cut-paper stencils through which a paste resist is applied to cloth in the first step of the katazome ("pattern-dying") process. Later, the cloth is dyed and the paste resist removed, leaving a complex, two-color pattern. The technique had its origins in eighth-century China, but was refined in Japan during the sixteenth century in order to produce the fine dot patterns seen on formal garments of members of the warrior class. During the Edo period (1615-1868), the reorganization of society by the Tokugawa shogunate encouraged further textile development, trade, and conspicuous consumption, spurring creativity and production.

The stencils are made by laminating two to four sheets of mulberry bark paper with tannin-rich persimmon juice and then cutting out the design elements using a variety of hand-made punches and/or knives. In order to reinforce particularly delicate designs (and allow blank spaces between certain elements), it is sometimes necessary to sandwich a web of fine silk threads between the layers of paper. These threads are so slender that they leave no trace on the finished textile. Katagami stencils are designed in such a way that they produce repetitive patterns--the top of each stencil matches up with the bottom--so that entire stencil-width bolts of cloth can be dyed using a single (or sometimes a pair of) reusable sheets. Avidly collected by late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Western visitors to Japan, these paper stencils show both the ingenuity of the anonymous artisans who produced them and the variety of designs used to decorate traditional Japanese dyed textiles.

Exhibition History

• Plum, Orchid, Chrysanthemum, and Bamboo: Botanical Motifs and Symbols in East Asian Painting, Harvard University Art Museums, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 07/06/2002 - 01/05/2003

Verification Level