A catalogue of the Ashmolean’s Japanese decorative arts from the Meiji period (1868-1912), by Oliver Impey and Joyce Seaman (published Oxford, 2005).
The original design for this screen was almost certainly made by Takeuchi Seihō (1864-1942), a well-known Kyoto painter and designer for the Kyoto silk manufacturer Takashimaya. Seihō spent time in Gifu in central Japan sketching cormorants and cormorant fishing, a local speciality. He also painted a pair of folding screens of cormorants around 1907; the composition of its left hand screen is very similar to this embroidery. (Exhibition number 18)
Impey, Oliver, and Joyce Seaman, Japanese Decorative Arts of the Meiji Period 1868-1912, Ashmolean Handbooks (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2005), no. 3 on p. 14, illus. pp. 14-15
Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 9 November 2012-27 January 2013, Threads of Silk and Gold: Ornamental Textiles from Meiji Japan, Clare Pollard, ed. (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2012), no. 18 p. 112, pp. 6 & 27, illus. pp. 4, 112 & 114-115
lacquer, maki-e
Chinese and Japanese lacquer is made from the sap of the lacquer tree, which is indigenous to Eastern China. It is applied to wood as a varnish or for decorative effect. In India and the Middle East, lacquer is made from the deposit of the lac insect.
(‘sprinkled design’) generic term for lacquer decoration using powdered metals sprinkled onto wet lacquer to create a design
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