Visions in Silk

A landmark survey showcasing spectacular Meiji-era Japanese art textiles from the world-renowned Khalili Collections, featuring over 300 remarkable silk treasures. Visions in Silk presents the first comprehensive exploration of exquisite Japanese fine art textiles from the Meiji era (1868-1912), showcasing the unparalleled treasures from the Khalili Collection of Japanese Art.

This beautifully illustrated volume reveals how Japanese artists and craftsmen ingeniously adapted centuries-old textile traditions to create innovative art textiles that captivated international audiences, won exhibition awards, and served as prestigious diplomatic gifts. Featuring over 300 spectacular examples, the book examines dazzling works of embroidery, yuzen resist-dyed silk and cut velvet, tapestry, and oshi-e raised silk, ranging from elegant panels, hangings, and screens to grand exhibition showpieces. Each represents the pinnacle of artistic collaboration and hitherto unsurpassed technical mastery.

Written by leading international experts, this landmark publication provides unprecedented insight into these remarkable yet understudied treasures. Visions in Silk will enchant anyone interested in Japanese art, textile design, Japonisme, and the cultural transformations that occurred during the Meiji era, when Japan opened to the outside world.

AUTHORS: Dr Clare Pollard is Curator of Japanese Art at the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. She previously worked as curator at the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. Her research has focused mainly on ceramics and textiles of the Meiji era and she is co-author with Hiroko T. McDermott of Threads of Silk and Gold: Ornamental Textiles from Meiji Japan (2012). Threads of Silk and Gold was the first major exhibition of Meiji artistic textiles to be held in the UK.

Luz van Overbeeke is a dealer, conservation manager, independent researcher and writer specialising in Japanese artistic textiles from the Meiji and Taisho eras. She is the owner of Gallery Talking Pieces, a gallery devoted to Japanese pictorial fine art textiles such as embroidery, yuzen cut-velvet, oshi-e and tsuzure-ori weaving of the late 19th- and early 20th-century.

Professor Hirota Takashi is a leading scholar on late 19th- and early 20th-century Japanese fine art textiles and has published extensively on the production of the Takashimaya Company. He is professor emeritus at Kyoto Women's University and has served as curator at both the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art and the Kyoto Municipal University of Arts.

Dr Matsubara Fumi is Director of the Kitano Cultural Research Institute at the Kitano Tenmangu Shrine and previously worked as a research fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Japan and as a postdoctoral fellow at the Kiyomizu Sannenzaka Museum. She holds a doctorate in Meiji Artistic textiles from Kyoto University.

SELLING POINTS:

• First-ever comprehensive showcase of the world's largest private collection of Japanese art textiles from the Meiji era, featuring over 300 spectacular examples from the renowned Khalili Collection.
• Written by leading international experts, offering original research and fresh insights into these historically significant yet understudied artistic treasures.
• Documents the crucial role of traditional craftsmanship in Japan's emergence onto the world stage in the late 19th century, highlighting the dynamic international exchange of this period and revealing how textiles helped shape Japan's cultural identity during its transformation into a modern nation.
• Lavishly illustrated volume presenting dazzling embroideries, tapestries, yuzen resist-dyed silks and cut velvets, and oshi-e raised silk pictures.
• From elegant panels, hangings and screens to grand exhibition showpieces.