The city of Kyoto was Japan’s imperial capital from 794 until 1603 when the Tokugawa Shogunate relocated the central government to Edo (Tokyo). As the center of court life, Kyoto had been and remained as a vibrant cultural magnet that supported a high level of connoisseurship in the arts and crafts. The Shogunate established strict control over a class system of warriors, farmers, artisans, and merchants. In Kyoto, while the royal family had been stripped of its power, the Edo period (1600–1868) gave rise to the machishu, a wealthy, culturally sophisticated group of the artisan and merchant classes. Through their patronage, the city’s skilled artisan traditions were maintained, and goods of the highest quality were produced and distributed throughout Japan.  The kimono tradition sustained by the machishu stands out as a distinctive aspect of Kyoto culture. The Meiji Restoration of the emperor to power in 1867 lifted the restrictions imposed by the Shogunate, and enabled wealthy merchants to exercise their economic power in new ways. They had both the means and the refined aesthetics to acquire and appreciate exquisite custom-made kimonos, and were both consumers and purveyors of luxury textiles and the tools essential to their production, the kimono zuan-cho, or design-idea books, which began to be published in this era.  The zuan-cho were used to communicate ideas between kimono dealers and their clients and back to the various craftsmen collaborating on a specific design to make the kimono.

  While ukiyoe thrived in Edo/Tokyo, in Kyoto, the center of the kimono industry, using the very same woodblock printing skills and artistic sensitivity, publishers were producing zuan-cho.  However, the zuan-cho cannot be separated from the textile industry and thus straddle the fine line between art and fine craft, a particularity that is probably one of the most interesting aspects of Japanese culture.  Furthermore, the artists who created these designs were often also painters who contributed designs for the kimono trade because of the steady income it provided. Progressively, more and more artists enrolled in the newly created craft and design schools (Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts, 1891; Tokyo Schools of Fine Arts, 1895 are the two earliest ones) becoming professional textile designers. Shin zuan, a compilation of twenty volumes published between 1891 and 1894, clearly illustrates that transition: it regroups the zuan of many reputed Kyoto painters as well as prize-winning designs from professional textile designers.

  The zuan-cho fell in disuse when more modern printing methods replaced woodblock prints for the publication of commercial catalogs.  However, the disappearance of both their practical relevance and technique of production promoted the zuan-cho from utilitarian reference books to works of art of unequaled beauty and cultural interest.  The zuan-cho, specifically conceived as a tool for the kimono industry, gained through its mastery of the wood block printing process, the talents of its designers, and its captivating beauty a status of its own.  Of an estimated 500 to 700 pattern books that were published in Kyoto during that period, only a few have been recovered and even fewer have been documented.  When one sees the designs contained in these books, one may be surprised by how contemporary and relevant they seem.

  For many generations Misako Mitsui's family, the Endo, were central figures in Kyoto's textile design industry for kimonos. Through this long-standing family expertise and intimate knowledge of the Kyoto textile and kimono industries, Mitsui Fine Arts, Inc., is particularly capable of advising collectors and providing access to exquisite design materials related to this specialized area of collecting.