Harvard Art Museums > 1919.483: Textile Stencil (katagami) with Chrysanthemum Design Artists' Tools Collections Search Exit Deep Zoom Mode Zoom Out Zoom In Reset Zoom Full Screen Add to Collection Order Image Copy Link Copy Citation Citation"Textile Stencil (katagami) with Chrysanthemum Design , 1919.483,” Harvard Art Museums collections online, Nov 21, 2024, https://hvrd.art/o/209625. Reuse via IIIF Toggle Deep Zoom Mode Download This object does not yet have a description. Identification and Creation Object Number 1919.483 Title Textile Stencil (katagami) with Chrysanthemum 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/209625 Physical Descriptions Medium Paper with silk-web reinforcement Dimensions paper: H. 32.1 x W. 43.6 cm (12 5/8 x 17 3/16 in.) pattern unit: H. 19.7 x W. 35.8 cm (7 3/4 x 14 1/8 in.) Acquisition and Rights Credit Line Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Dr. Denman W. Ross Accession Year 1919 Object Number 1919.483 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. This stencil is 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 Publication History Jennifer Roberts, Contact: The Art and Pull of Print, Princeton University Press (Princeton and Oxford, 2024), pp. 105-106, fig. 4.2 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 This record was created from historic documentation and may not have been reviewed by a curator; it may be inaccurate or incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
