Japanese Kosode Fragments of the Edo Period (1615–1868):  

A Recent Acquisition by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

           

by

Joyce Denney

 

This presentation will serve as a brief introduction to a group of over thirty-five Japanese textiles of the Edo period (1615–1868) recently acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.  Most of the textiles are fairly large silk fragments from kosode robes, and their materials, techniques, and designs are consistent with dates ranging from the late seventeenth to early nineteenth centuries.  Plans are underway to exhibit the majority of these textiles in the Japanese galleries at the Museum in the spring of 2003.

 

Several of the fragments correspond to textiles used in the kosode screens of Shojirō Nomura’s famous collection, which is in the National Museum of Japanese History in Sakura, Japan.  Similar pieces that were formerly in Nomura’s hands found their way into other American collections, and a connoisseur’s book of small fragments in the Metropolitan Museum can also claim counterparts in the Nomura screens.

 

At the heart of the recent acquisition are textiles dating from the mid-Edo period, late 17th to late 18th century.  The early part of the mid-Edo period featured two traditions, the exuberantly sumptuous and decorative “Genroku style,” as it is sometimes termed by textile scholars, and the rise of yūzen, a new dye-patterning technique perfectly suited to a lighter, more pictorial or painterly style.  The early yūzen examples in the group are particularly instructive and rare.   

 

 

Joyce Denney received a masters degree in East Asian studies from Columbia University.  Specializing in East Asian textiles, she serves as Senior Research Assistant in the Department of Asian Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.