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Details
- Place where the work was made
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Japan
- Period
- Edo (Tokugawa) period 1615 - 1868 → Japan
- Date
- 19th century
- Media category
- Textile
- Materials used
- plain silk gauze weave, paste-resist dyeing ('shiro-age'), and silk and metallic thread embroidery
- Dimensions
- 167.0 x 55.2cm
- Credit
- Purchased with funds provided by the Asian Art Collection Benefactors 2014
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 241.2014
- Copyright
- Share
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About
A wintry landscape with thatched hut enclosed on one side by a brushwood fence and a pair of mandarin ducks covers both front and back of this superb unlined kosode ('hitoe') decorated in the intricate Yūzen technique that combines paste-resist dyeing and embroidery. The plum blossoms, snow-covered reeds, pine, bamboo grass ('sasa') and chrysanthemums are reserved in white on the yellowish-green ground. Embroidery in bright red, deep purple, light pink and gold form intriguing accents. Couched gold embroidery is also used to outline the brushwood fence and the billowing clouds at the top as well as to suggest the ice on the slightly frozen pond. Fluttering snowflakes and the stylised waves are executed in the 'shiro-age' resist-dye technique that mimics the fine lines of ink drawing. To create a sense of variety, some flecks of snow are embroidered.
Designs of seasonal birds and flowers – in this case the season is clearly winter – and objects alluding to classical literature such as the brushwood fence and the thatched hut are known as 'goshodoki', or ‘imperial court style’, and can be worn only by women of the elite samurai class. The motifs on this unlined kosode do not only represent winter, but also have auspicious meanings: pine, plum blossoms and bamboo symbolise the virtues of a scholar-official: perseverance, purity and righteousness. As they thrive in the cold season, they are also known as the ‘Three Friends of winter’. Mandarin ducks symbolise marital bliss (even though in reality they change partner every winter) and are traditionally included in winter sceneries, the time when they mate. The fact that a winter landscape is used as the main motif for a summer kosode expresses the witty spirit typical for Edoites and the Edo period. In the scorching heat of summer, the sight of snow offers a sense of freshness and relief.
REFERENCES:
Gluckman, Dale Carolyn & Takeda, Sharon Sadako. 'When art became fashion : kosode in Edo-period Japan'. With contributions by Monica Bethe, Hollis Goodall-Cristante, William B. Hauser, Kirihata Ken, Maruyama Nobuhiko, Nagasaki Iwao, Robert T. Singer. New York/Tokyo: Weatherhill and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1992Stinchecum, Amanda Myer. 'Kosode, 16th-19th century textiles from the Nomura Collection'. With essays by Monica Bethe and Margot Paul ; edited by Naomi Noble Richard and Margot Paul, New York: Japan Society and Kodansha International, 1984.
Asian Art Department, AGNSW, 2014.
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Places
Where the work was made
Japan
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Exhibition history
Shown in 2 exhibitions
Conversations through the Asian collections, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 25 Oct 2014–13 Mar 2016
Beyond Words: Calligraphic Traditions of Asia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 27 Aug 2016–30 Apr 2017