Japanese antique nobori banner, hand painted on cotton, a tiger in bamboo grove. The style of the painting is derived from ancient Korean paintings of tigers. It is a style that became popular in Japan from the 16th century and you will see many screens and scrolls of tigers painted in this manner. The popularity of these paintings in this style continued throughout the Edo period(1608-1868) and into the Meiji era. The quality of the artwork tells us that this nobori is likely to have been done by an artist employed by the family whose mon (family crest) appears on the banner. The crests are omodaka, water plantain. The omodaka was sometimes called shogun-so, a ‘victory plant’ because of the shape of the leaf resembles the tip of an arrow. This design was popular among samurai before the Edo period when the crest was not quite adopted by them. There are hosts of families that used the plantain crest in simple forms as seen on the top. It is an emblem often used by families associated with famous generals such as MORI Motonari and TOYOTOMI Hidetsugu who both used the water plantain among their emblems.
Noboris as good as this one rarely come into the market, and although the condition is not perfect, it has not lost much of its dramatic appeal. The fabric of the design area is in good condition (approx. 7.91 feet long). We placed (pined) an old temple brocade to a corner at the bottom – this not only covers the tear but also give the weight to the bottom. The top crest area has damage from black dye. The fabric is brittle in black area. There are long lines of writing in black ink hidden at the top hemming. We cut the thread open about 10 inches long, it revealed the writing, but it is not eligible to us.
Dimensions: Approx. 26 1/4" in width and 14.38 feet long without including the tassels (67 cm x 4.38 meter). The good area at the bottom is 95” (7.91 feet) long.
