Antique Japanese Katagami Textile Stencil with Cranes, Branches, and Handwritten Notes wedding day portrait Carved of cow bone

Carved of cow bone

it is the more naive and personally expressive examples that attract me

) Sweet and lovely

I LOVE her

Perfectly alligatored tall thin hand-painted lettering against perfectly aged cool white ground

Antique Japanese Katagami Textile Stencil with Cranes, Branches, and Handwritten Notes wedding day portrait Carved of cow boneThis is a Japanese "katagami" paper stencil, made of layers of mulberry paper laminated together and treated with kakishibu persimmon tannin that lends durability and water resistence. Paper stencil like this were traditionally used for patterning textiles, especially kimono fabric, using a resist dyeing process called katazome. I am not at all an expert but find them quite beautiful things, and really love the (all handcut) pattern on this one, with