Welcome to Cynthia Shaver, Asian Art Appraiser, October/November Newsletter 2025,
The point of this column, is to show how over decades, decorative art, in particular Japanese vintage textiles, is susceptible to fashion trends. Susceptible to color combinations, patterns, and materials and more. When mentioning fashion, I mean home decor, wallpaper and yes, clothing styles.
This was demonstrated to me by a friend returning a Japanese cotton ikat panel I had given her in the late 1970s. At that point in my life, I had a store, Cynthia Shaver south of Market in San Francisco in the Galleria Design Center, and was a dealer of Japanese antique textiles. I was particularly careful to pay attention to condition, and I would never have purchased a textile for sale with holes, even if patched, because of the condition. For my clients over the years, and for most museums, condition is the number one element of value. If the condition poor, or as is, it indicated a lower quality and thus, value. I only wanted to have the best quality in my inventory and that meant condition also.
But I did purchase this soft, 12” wide, indigo panel, because it was such a wonderful design, vertically alternating a flying crane with an vertical alternating cherry blossom emitting from a grid pattern that included double ikat, where both warp threads and weft threads, have been tied with thin strips of plastic to resist the indigo dye penetration, resulting in a block of white among the indigo colored threads. The flying crane on the other hand, only the weft threads were tied to resist dye penetration so the design was diluted by warp indigo threads not displaying as all white.
At the time of my gift, 1976, it would have been a difficult textile panel to sell, here in San Francisco, because of condition, but it made a lovely gift for a good friend. Today, not only do the patches positively affect the value of the property but, also make it more desirable. Boro, a patch in Japanese, adds interest, another feature in the value characteristics, surpassing the poor condition element of value. The boro element of value added an unexpected level reflected in what is fashionable today. Contemporary fashion has holes and patches to mimic a certain age or vintage look. In most Western fashion, it added a weathered, used and authentic look. It has been more than four decades, but the fair market value today of this panel would be $300.00 – $400.00. The color, or quality, of indigo is so important in futon panels like this. Sometimes the indigo looks black or gray or even a dull indigo. The deep blue saturation requires sometimes twenty dipping’s in the dyebath. The quality of the indigo in this example is warm and inviting.
Motanai, or the concept of waste nothing, was often repeated to young children, like a mantra. It has been part of Japanese culture for 800 years according to Wikipedia. Patched cotton cloth in Japan is quite common, either for kimono or futon panels with the patches revealing a treasure trove of patterns and techniques too. The cloth continues a life, wabi sabi, rather than patching an ‘old thing.’ The value in Japan is not so affected by the patches, only if they were ‘missing’ then something was wrong. Like why the dog didn’t bark for Sherlock Holmes.