each panel 171 x 72 cm

While most early twentieth-century Kyoto textiles for the overseas market seem to have been based on Western or Japanese painted originals, this screen goes one step further and actually combines traditional brushwork with embroidery. The painted snow scene is enhanced by the inclusion of a number of embroidered crows, the dark sheen of the silk perfectly imitating the birds’ plumage.

J. Earle, Splendors of Imperial Japan: Arts of the Meiji period from the Khalili Collection, London 2002, cat. 294, pp. 400–1.