A Length of Red Colored Cotton Shibori: Meiji Era

late nineteenth, early twentieth century
32 3/4" x 12", 83 cm x 30.5 cm

This is a length of a kind of shibori dyed cotton cloth that was produced in the Meiji era, in the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century.

The red color on this piece of shibori dyed cotton are synthetic dyes which were introduced to Japan from Germany in the mid-to-late nineteenth century.

Since a true red was difficult to achieve from botanical sources in Japan there was an attraction to red tones once synthetic dyes were introduced and a scarlet red could be easily had.

This kind of red shibori is of a type, and very often on this type of red dyed shibori there will be the presence of a judiciously placed deep blue dye as is shown here. And almost without fail on each example of this kind of red shibori with blue details the blue dye bleeds or is offset onto another part the cloth (as is the case here).

More than likely this length was taken from a han juban or a half under kimono as the length of the cloth suggests this as does the type of cloth this is: this kind of cotton was often used in the creating of kimono under clothes.

Beautiful--and much older and more interesting than it appears at first glance. Please note one tiny hole, pictured.

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