A Generous Length of Shifu: Paper Yarn Weft Cloth

late nineteenth, early twentieth century
48 1/2" x 12 1/4", 123 cm x 31 cm

This is an unusually generously sized length of visually rich and nuanced, rustic shifu which is cloth woven from twisted, hand made paper yarn.

Offered here is a desirable type of shifu, that is, one that shows traces of ink in the form of randomly grouped areas of dark blips. These clusters of dark blips are the ink that was written on the paper (washi), most likely pages from an accounting book of a type that provided the base for this wonderful shimacho, also offered today.

Note as well the presence of a red color in some areas. This shows where cinnabar colored stamps were imprinted onto the paper before twisting it into yarn.

The warp yarns are two shades of indigo dyed cotton which lend a barely-able-to-discern vertically-oriented striated effect to this woven length.

As said above, if you look at the surface of this length of shifu you will see small black blips that populate the weft portion of the cloth; these small markings are ink-based hand writing, and it is this detail that is desirable when considering a rustic shifu fragment.

This piece of cloth is well-used and there is a coin-sized hole to the cloth, very easy to see on the photos presented here.

This is a very collectible length of old cloth and one that will be as much a treasure in years to come as it is now.

A rare treat.

Recommended.