A 1930s Japanese kimono silk in the Rubelli archive is the starting point, and what has been kept from it is the shibori: the soft-edged, slightly blurred boundaries that tie-dyeing leaves behind, including the small irregularities a mechanical process would have tidied away.
What sits on the satin ground is Venetian rather than Japanese. The shapes are vases, and they belong to the glasshouses of the same decade, when Murano was making pieces with those heavy shoulders and narrow necks. Two cities and one period, meeting on an 82 cm repeat.
Silk with cotton and viscose, 290 g a metre, so it is a decorating cloth: curtains, blinds, cushions, a screen. All six versions are laid over a light ground, which is what keeps the drawing legible. 140 cm wide, made in Italy.
