藤紫絽地波千鳥模様単衣|Unlined Summer Kimono (Hito-e) with Plovers in Flight over Stylized Waves

Unknown

Date unknown · Embroidered and resist-dyed silk gauze (ro) · Asian Art

Unlined, light and airy summer kimonos are often decorated with motifs for their cooling psychological effect. Here, violet and white plovers wheel and dive on a background of abstract peaked shapes that may be meant to represent waves or the drying fishnets found along the shores where plovers were plentiful. The violet plovers were embroidered in silk, while the white plovers were resist dyed on the dark ground and have tiny embroidered silver eyes. Similar patterns were popular in the second half of the Edo period (1615–1868), but the layout of the design was different and the depiction of the scene less stylized.

Artist

Unknown

Date

Date unknown

Medium

Embroidered and resist-dyed silk gauze (ro)

Culture

Japan

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

Gift of Atsuko Irie, in honor of Suga Irie, 1998