Design: from a Meiji-era kimono pattern book

Size: 11 cm by 15.5 cm | Enlargement | Shipping Code: [S] ?

Price: $30.00 |

Available: In stock, ready for shipping.

This is a design 'stolen' from a kimono pattern book issued in Meiji 31 (1898). Of course, in that era there was no standard colour printing, and the only way for a kimono fabric maker to distribute sample patterns to kimono shops around the country was by means of woodblock printing

The book contains hundreds of pages, all full-colour printed like this, and must have cost an absolute fortune to produce ... Although I suppose back then such craftsmen were a 'dime a dozen' ...

The image is one that doesn't need much explanation - the concept of the fish swimming upstream, or leaping against the current is an obvious metaphor for successful struggle. Although as this fish is leaping from the sea, rather than a swift river, one wonders ...