Welcome to Cynthia Shaver Asian Art Appraiser Monthly Newsletter May 2024,
Last month, I attended by zoom, a fascinating symposium on Cotsen textile collection,
https://museum.gwu.edu/cotsen-textile-traces-colloquium-rethink-silk
held at the Textile Museum, George Washington University. I learned how silk was produced and marketed around the world, in wild form in parts of Africa, to highly mechanized production in 1880’s Japan. John Vollmer had a part in this production, if not all, and I thank him for his persistence in pursuit of all things of interest related to threads. I am a thread head. And while passing through the Bay Area, Zhao Feng, another participant in the symposium, stopped and renewed a thirty-year friendship and discussion with my husband, Arthur Leeper.
‘Count Your Blessings’, the title of the Society For Asian Art, Asian Art Museum, event with Annie Dorsey and her collections of malas, or prayer beads in April, was a fascinating, hands-on approach to learning. We learned the beads were always 108 in count, and that is the number of stiches on an American League baseball.!!!
We took a short trip to Austin to visit new granddaughter, Emilia Louise, and to visit Lotus Antiques. Both a delight. The Textile Arts Council, TAC, support arm for textile department at Fine Arts Museum of SF, held a talk about artist Kay Sekimachi. It was fabulous.
I suggest each one of you watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN4zue_-rzQ
I also worked with fellow appraiser Kalim Winata on a collection of Korean scrolls, and he discovered one was calligraphy, a banner, by the first president of South Korea. What a fun surprise for the client.
This exhibition is wonderful
https://www.famsf.org/exhibitions/japanese-prints?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwltKxBhDMARIsAG8KnqXRK1SwYdtSG1uxRBPfQeSEV-hXvTL1D0ddzHGLU0J8mxlamJHPDwcaAooyEALw_wcB
Thank you for reading my newsletter,
Cynthia