Vintage/Antique Ise Katagami Japanese Stencil used to apply pigment designs by hand to textiles such as Kimono silk, linen and cotton. The stencils were used to create layers of design, with each stencil being hand-cut using special tools known as Dogu-bori. The printed material is called Katazome Cloth. Katagami can still be used today as a stencil or they look great framed and hung on the wall as artwork. They especially look great with light coming through the stencil and could be used for decorative lamp shades or applied to windows.   

This Katagami is in very good original condition and features an Intricate Floral Pattern design. Age is difficult to determine, but it is certainly of vintage origin. The pattern is intact with no holes or tears. There may be splits, holes or creases evident on the edges. Measures 54cm tall x 53cm wide. Pattern area measures 40cm x 38cm. This stencil shows signs of use with ink or paint stains. These stencils are very delicate and can tear easily, so care must be taken. All our Katagami are rolled carefully between paper and posted in a tube to prevent damage in transit.  

Multiple layers of thin washi paper are bonded with a glue extracted from persimmon, which makes a strong flexible brown coloured paper. The designs can be extremely intricate, and consequently fragile. It took great skill, concentration and a steady hand by the artist to hand cut or hand punch the designs. Nowadays the stencils are sometimes sold as artwork, attached to hand fans, or used to decorate screens and doors in Japanese rooms. For kimono printing the stencils are stabilized by attaching them to a fine silk net. In past times, human hair was used instead of silk, but silk is less likely to warp and can be finer.

Technique

Three sheets of washi or Japanese paper are pasted together with kakishibu, tannin-rich persimmon juice. The pattern is excised using a variety of tools known as dōgu-bori.Four principal cutting techniques are used:

  1. Pulling the knife towards the artist, which results in long straight cuts.
  2. Carving patterns, which allows for figurative designs.
  3. Cutting circular holes, often in fan-like designs
  4. Using shaped punches.

The stencils are then used for resist dyeing. Rice paste is passed through the stencil onto silk. When dyed, the color does not adhere to the areas with rice paste. By multiple alignments of the stencil, large areas can be patterned. This technique was developed in France as Silk screen printing.

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POSTAGE: Please disregard the long postage dates quoted by Ebay. 
We post once a week every Wednesday, so items will arrive a lot sooner than specified.