I came across my first Japanese velvet painting in a small antique shop in Maine. A type of corduroy fabric with fine horizontal lines, but noticed that the lines had been "cut" into a velvet texture in places where trees, rocks, boats etc. were. Had no idea what this was, but purchased it for a modest $10. It wasn't until I won a Herron swooping through some branches in a Pennsylvania auction that I noticed it too was made in the same style: Classic Meiji Japanese painting with muted colors and exceptional artistic talent. The unsigned works would grow into a collection of some 50-odd paintings of all talent levels (tourist art to museum pieces), long before I even found the "Yuzen Birodo" or Japanese cut-velvet painting label on the back of one piece.
It was then that I was able to learn much more about this fascinating art. The label on the back of a landscape read, "How the Well-Known YUZEN-BIRODO, or CUT-VELVET, is made" Inventor and manufacturer: Sozayemon Nishimura, Kioto, Japan. The label goes on to describe the art; more of that in my next blog. From what I've been able to gather, this art is also called "Senkiri" and I sure would like to find out more about it's origins. Whether or not Nishimura was the inventor, I do not know. Those stores in Kioto were around in the 1920s when much of this art was made, but tales go back to the 1840s for some of the pieces I've acquired. Please email me at raoverton@yahoo.com if you know anything about YUZEN BIRODO.
Cheers,
Gail Overton
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