Kesa
1900–1912
- Medium
- Linen, silk, and gilt-paper strip; plain, twill, and satin weaves with secondary binding warp and supplementary patterning wefts, with plied cords
- Dimensions
- 79.8 × 44.2 cm (31 3/8 × 17 3/8 in.)
- Genre
- Textile
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago
Styles
Tags
liturgical - buddhistsilk (fiber)meijiTextilepaper (fiber product)weaving
About
A number of Japanese sects found the large size of some kesa based on Chinese models so cumbersome that they developed their own more manageable versions. A small five-column kesa (a type known as the rakusa) was designed with shoulder straps and worn like a halter around the neck. A slightly larger version of the rakusa without an ivory ring, such as this example, was favored by the Jodo sect.