Unlined Summer Kimono (Hito-e) with Crickets, Grasshoppers, Cricket Cages, and Pampas Grass

Unlined Summer Kimono (Hito-e) with Crickets, Grasshoppers, Cricket Cages, and Pampas Grass

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In Japan, insects beloved for their chirping song were sometimes caught or purchased and kept in cages. This robe features a variety of insects in cages amid pampas grass, evoking cool autumn days, which are often depicted on summer kimonos. The pampas grass, cages, crickets, grasshoppers, and bell-ring insects (suzumushi) are rendered using paste-resist dyeing (yūzen) and embroidery. Variations in the application of the ground dye and scattered, glinting gold embroidery evoke the quality of light at the end of an autumn day. This design was already popular in the early Edo period and is depicted in the first volume of the On-hiinagata (1667), the earliest woodblock-printed book of patterns for kosode.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Unlined Summer Kimono (Hito-e) with Crickets, Grasshoppers, Cricket Cages, and Pampas GrassUnlined Summer Kimono (Hito-e) with Crickets, Grasshoppers, Cricket Cages, and Pampas GrassUnlined Summer Kimono (Hito-e) with Crickets, Grasshoppers, Cricket Cages, and Pampas GrassUnlined Summer Kimono (Hito-e) with Crickets, Grasshoppers, Cricket Cages, and Pampas GrassUnlined Summer Kimono (Hito-e) with Crickets, Grasshoppers, Cricket Cages, and Pampas Grass

The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works, providing an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world.