Tankuma Company
Dismantled Maru Obi with Gosho-guruma (Noble’s Carriage) and Palace Veranda
1911
Scroll
Tankuma Company
Dismantled Maru Obi with Gosho-guruma (Noble’s Carriage) and Palace Veranda
1911
Physical Qualities
Silk with supplementary wefts of silk, metal-leafed paper strips, and metal-leafed paper strips wrapped around a silk or cotton thread core, 160 x 27 in. (406.4 x 68.6 cm.)
Credit Line
Gift of Clara Jane Shaull, Monkton, Maryland, from the Collection of Robert S. Shaull
Object Number
1990.302
A fully opened and dismantled maru obi of nishiki (polychrome figured silk with supplementary wefts of silk, metallic-leafed paper strips and metallic-leafed paper strips wrapped around a thread core). The design consists of landscape scenes including the veranda of a Heian palace with kicho (suspended court curtain or curtain of state), a bridge, a noble's cart (gosho-guruma), and an unidentified building, with cranes, clouds, trees, rocks, and flowers in the background. These are created in weft colors of orange, green, blue, red, gold, and white on an off-white ground. The pattern repeat is 18-3/4" to 19" high and 13-3/4" wide. The obi was opened along all sides, unfolded and the lining removed revealing the complex weave structure and floating wefts on the reverse side. It has remained unfolded as a length of cloth. The ends are unfinished.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by gift 1990, Clara Jane Shaull, ex. collection Robert S. Shaull, (husband) by purchase in Manchuria.
Anita Jones and Ann Marie Moeller, The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD, "Kimono and Obi: Romantic Echoes from Japan's Golden Age," July 10, 2016 - January 15, 2017.
Inscribed: Marked at one end in black ink with a hexagon containing a number, letter, or character. Stamped in blue ink enclosed in rectangle: "Tankuma".