Delaware Antiques Show 2021

A large portion of the back of the artwork is obscured by a partial layer of tissue, which, in combination with the deteriorating frame, reveals a paper lining behind the ground fabric. The lining, in remarkably good condition, passes beneath the stretcher, an indication that the paper was laid down before the textile was framed. Two distinct types of paper serve as backing material—the easily identifiable newsprint and washi , a traditional Japanese paper often used for artistic purposes and calligraphy. Partial translations of the newsprint reveals articles about local schools, recent performances, and an upcoming lecture. One article references a transcription of a kodan storyteller, naming both the storyteller, Takarai Bakin, and the stenographer, Imamura Jiro. The two frequently worked together between 1900 and 1920, dating this object to either the end of the Meiji Period (1868–1912) or the Taisho Period (1912–26). Despite a clear connection to 20th-century Japan, the dissonance between the European image and the backing paper remains perplexing. While the visual iconography may initially read as Euro-American, the stylistic features of the embroidery suggest an Asian origin. Although embroidery in Japan historically was used primarily for clothing embellishment, it also enhanced decorative objects, such as ceremonial silk wrappings. Featuring high-quality silk thread worked in long split stitches and modified stem stitches, this silk-work picture shares more distinctive features with Asian embroidery than with contemporaneous European examples. This type of silk-work picture, shishu kaiga, or embroidery painting, was a product closely associated with Kyoto throughout the Meiji Era and briefly held popular appeal in Japan and abroad. Meiji-Era shishu kaiga get frequent mention in literature but rarely show up in modern textile collections outside of Japan. Despite this omission, period descriptions of Japanese embroidery describe beautiful silk-work paintings produced in Japan that were commonly exported and used in Euro-American decorative trends. There are likely more in museum collections that simply remain unidentified because of the sociopolitical climate in which they were originally made. After the end of the isolationist period, Japan embarked on a series of radical changes intended to avoid cultural domination under the long shadow of British imperialism. Known as the Meiji Restoration, the period is often studied in terms of technological and political shifts, but artistic movements also mirrored these outward-gazing changes. The political instability resulting from a reorganization of the Japanese ruling class destabilized the domestic market for traditional Japanese craft, such as embroidery. The broadening of international markets, however, provided attentive, affluent customers hungry for “authentic” material, resulting in the spread Japanese workmanship throughout Europe—an effect that appealed to the Japanese government, who sponsored the growth of craft industries and encouraged the creation of objects specifically for export markets. — 17 —