Minneapolis Institute of Art

Noh costume (nuihaku) with autumn flowers

Japan

Date

mid 17th century

Medium

Silk embroidery and gold leaf on silk

Department

Asian Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

In the traditional Japanese musical drama called Noh, female characters usually wear an under robe like this one, known as a nuihaku , beneath an outer robe called a karaori. Nuihaku robes feature a combination of embroidered designs and applied gold and silver leaf. Here, gold bands represent mist floating in an autumn meadow among flowers including flame-like cockscomb, dianthus (with five fringed petals), chrysanthemums, and clumps of the shrub-like bush clover. Noh costumes such as this one created in the mid-1600s, during the Edo period, derived from robes worn by fashionable aristocratic women of the Momoyama period (1573–1603). Asia

The authoritative record is held by Minneapolis Institute of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.