A series of most fortunate events
Aug. 26th, 2008 09:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gurdymonkeyA few days ago I received an email from someone who had found me while Googling the term "hiogi."
We parted company. Since I'd come into Berkeley anyway, I figured I'd head across the street and give Moe's a quick once over.
"I have recently added a hiogi to my collection of Japanese artifacts. I am not a needle person but I would like to restore the piece. The stitches are missing from each pair of cypress leaves and the stitching to connect all the leaves is missing. In other words, no stitching in the piece at all." He asked if I'd call him since he was local* to me or whether I might be interested in actually viewing the fan.
It appears he found me through the Tousando board - if you search on "hiogi fan", it sends you to a thread on that forum where I described how to lace this type of brise fan together based on my experiments. Additionally, my profile there gave him a geographic clue to my proximity.
Fast forward to Cafe Mediterranean on Telegraph in Berkeley at 5 PM this evening - mutually convenient as well as being public, because I don't know this person. He turned out to be a very pleasant older gentleman. More importantly, the "hiogi" could not possibly have been used as a hand fan by anyone smaller than Andre the Giant. We couldn't open it all the way on a single square table that would seat four. One side was beautifully painted with a scene of armored samurai, the other with birds and flowers. The end bones were massively sturdy, while the thin cypress vanes were arranged to form double layers. The silk thread that had laced it together was long gone, but it appears to have originally been a pale blue or aqua. Each vane was pierced with a double row of three holes (for a total of six) and the dye marks from the old thread formed a shape that looks like the Roman numeral for twenty (XX) if rendered in Times New Roman font instead of the Arial that LJ defaults to. Considerably more complicated than any lacing arrangements I've come across so far for slat fans, but given the sheer size of this thing, the XX attachment was probably to give it more strength. I made a sketch and told him I'd try playing around with some cardboard and thread at home and see if I could figure out the lacing arrangement. I also suggested he take it to the nice folks at Genji Antiques in San Francisco, because they could probably tell him a lot more about what he has than I could. We speculated a bit - might be a ceremonial item carried or displayed in a festival, or it could be purely decorative. For that matter, it could've been made for export.
He thanked me. I thanked him for letting me see his treasure and am kicking myself for not having taken a camera along and gotten some photos of it. We agreed to keep each other posted on whatever we found out.
It appears he found me through the Tousando board - if you search on "hiogi fan", it sends you to a thread on that forum where I described how to lace this type of brise fan together based on my experiments. Additionally, my profile there gave him a geographic clue to my proximity.
Fast forward to Cafe Mediterranean on Telegraph in Berkeley at 5 PM this evening - mutually convenient as well as being public, because I don't know this person. He turned out to be a very pleasant older gentleman. More importantly, the "hiogi" could not possibly have been used as a hand fan by anyone smaller than Andre the Giant. We couldn't open it all the way on a single square table that would seat four. One side was beautifully painted with a scene of armored samurai, the other with birds and flowers. The end bones were massively sturdy, while the thin cypress vanes were arranged to form double layers. The silk thread that had laced it together was long gone, but it appears to have originally been a pale blue or aqua. Each vane was pierced with a double row of three holes (for a total of six) and the dye marks from the old thread formed a shape that looks like the Roman numeral for twenty (XX) if rendered in Times New Roman font instead of the Arial that LJ defaults to. Considerably more complicated than any lacing arrangements I've come across so far for slat fans, but given the sheer size of this thing, the XX attachment was probably to give it more strength. I made a sketch and told him I'd try playing around with some cardboard and thread at home and see if I could figure out the lacing arrangement. I also suggested he take it to the nice folks at Genji Antiques in San Francisco, because they could probably tell him a lot more about what he has than I could. We speculated a bit - might be a ceremonial item carried or displayed in a festival, or it could be purely decorative. For that matter, it could've been made for export.
He thanked me. I thanked him for letting me see his treasure and am kicking myself for not having taken a camera along and gotten some photos of it. We agreed to keep each other posted on whatever we found out.
We parted company. Since I'd come into Berkeley anyway, I figured I'd head across the street and give Moe's a quick once over.
I found an out of print edition of Tales of Moonlight and Rain (Ugetsu Monogatari) a translation of Ueda Akinari's 1776 collection of nine supernatural tales.
I headed up to the fourth floor where the history books are and was surprised to see that the Art and Antiquarian room was open. For some reason I'd thought they closed at 6. I usually go in, scope out the museum catalog bin, reverently caress a couple of art or textile books I cannot possibly afford and that's that.
That's where I saw it. Jodai-Gire: 7th and 8th Century Textiles in Japan From the Shoso-in and Horyu-Ji. I sucked in my breath, pulled it off the shelf. $125.00. Yeah. I know. For a softbound book. For a softbound book in both Japanese and English with over 160 pages of lavish color plates of exquisite textile fragments from the Nara period, and roughly 50 pages of descriptive notes in English (plus 50 pages in Japanese if I ever decide to try the Rosetta Stone approach to learning Japanese).
I put it back on the shelf. I told myself that if it was there the next time I came in, I would buy it, because I've just plunked down money for the taiko workshop and rent's due all too soon. I went outside. I browsed the history stacks. Then I went back and pulled out my credit card because my gut was insisting "You snooze, you lose." The guy behind the desk rang me up and knocked the price on Tales of Moonlight and Rain down to $10, just 'cause.
I came home. I Googled both titles. Amazon.com does not have Jodai-Gire in stock.
Alibris.com's listing shows it at $150 (and the seller is Moe's Books!)
Antiqbook.nl has it for $160 Euros (252.64 US).
Biblioz.com has it for $325 Australian ($279.37 US).
The new reprint of Tales runs $23.20 on Amazon.com. Used copies of the edition I have veer erratically from $11 to $127.
You bet I'm rationalizing!!!!!
I headed up to the fourth floor where the history books are and was surprised to see that the Art and Antiquarian room was open. For some reason I'd thought they closed at 6. I usually go in, scope out the museum catalog bin, reverently caress a couple of art or textile books I cannot possibly afford and that's that.
That's where I saw it. Jodai-Gire: 7th and 8th Century Textiles in Japan From the Shoso-in and Horyu-Ji. I sucked in my breath, pulled it off the shelf. $125.00. Yeah. I know. For a softbound book. For a softbound book in both Japanese and English with over 160 pages of lavish color plates of exquisite textile fragments from the Nara period, and roughly 50 pages of descriptive notes in English (plus 50 pages in Japanese if I ever decide to try the Rosetta Stone approach to learning Japanese).
I put it back on the shelf. I told myself that if it was there the next time I came in, I would buy it, because I've just plunked down money for the taiko workshop and rent's due all too soon. I went outside. I browsed the history stacks. Then I went back and pulled out my credit card because my gut was insisting "You snooze, you lose." The guy behind the desk rang me up and knocked the price on Tales of Moonlight and Rain down to $10, just 'cause.
I came home. I Googled both titles. Amazon.com does not have Jodai-Gire in stock.
Alibris.com's listing shows it at $150 (and the seller is Moe's Books!)
Antiqbook.nl has it for $160 Euros (252.64 US).
Biblioz.com has it for $325 Australian ($279.37 US).
The new reprint of Tales runs $23.20 on Amazon.com. Used copies of the edition I have veer erratically from $11 to $127.
You bet I'm rationalizing!!!!!
