Yukimine (active circa 1900)


A four-panel ornamental padded-textile screenMeiji (1868-1912) or Taisho (1912-1926) era, late 19th/early 20th centuryMade in the oshi-e (padded silk) technique, depicting a procession of a court noble beneath flying cranes, a high-ranking nobleman mounted on horseback leads from the front while others on foot accompany the palanquin, lower-ranking samurai and attendants carry all the paraphernalia, all on a gold-painted silk background, signed Yukimine and sealed Torin no in 67 x 83 (170.2 x 210.8cm) overall; 50 1/4 x 83in (127.6 x 210.8cm) (image only)
|Oshi-e, also known as kiritori zaiku, was a technique in which paper or silk wadding is covered with dyed and painted silk or paper to create padded-relief designs. Little is known of this technique, but it probably dates back to the sixteenth century. In the Meiji era, oshi-e was regarded as a feminine accomplishment alongside ikebana, tea ceremony and embroidery. Relatively few recorded examples survive today but the genre was displayed in the "Fancy Articles" section of the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876 (see Hiroko T. McDermott and Clare Pollard, Threads of Silk and Gold, Ornamental Textiles from Meiji Japan, Oxford, The Ashmolean Museum, 2012, pp.178-1831. The unsettling realism of oshie-e was immortalized in mystery writer Edogawa Ranpo's ghostly 1929 novella Oshi-e to tabisuru otoko (The Man Who Travelled with an Oshie-e), Edogawa Ranpo zenshu (Complete Works of Edogawa Ranpo), 5, Tokyo, Kubunsha Bunko, 2005, pp.11-38.