How the Japanese describe Yuzen-Birodo

The label on the back of one of my Japanese cut-velvet paintings, called Yuzen Birodo, is from Sozayemon Nishimura, "How the Well-Known YUZEN-BIRODO or CUT-VELVET is made:

The Yuzen-Birodo, better known as Cut-Velvet is not a painted work as it appears to be. The Pictoral affect produced thereon is obtained by a special process of dyeing invented by the artist Yuzen who flourished in the latter part of the 17th century, hence the name Yuzen Dyeing. In course of weaving the fabric, the slender metallic wires running parallel with the woof, become covered with the threads. The required patterns and designs are dyed into the fabric thus produced, by the Yuzen process: the colors obtained being quite durable. When the dyeing is finished, each thread covering the wires woven into the texture, is carefully cut over the picture produced, while the ground of the fabric is left plain without the cutting. The wires are then extracted and the work is completed.

Basically, dyed areas are cut from loops into velvet pile, giving a variable texture across the hand-dyed fabric. No two are alike. The "velvet" is very subtle. Please email raoverton@yahoo.com if you know more.........

Gail