Fisherman’s Festival Robe (Maiwai) with Waves, Ship, and Fan

This garment was most likely created as a festival robe for a fisherman (maiwai) donned when celebrating a successful catch. At some point it was refashioned into a woman’s kimono while still manifesting its “folk art” (mingei) origins. The boldly graphic ship on the seas motif is based on an episode from the Tale of the Heike (Heike monogatari) when Nasu no Yoichi (ca. 1169–ca. 1232), a celebrated archer fighting on the side of the Minamoto clan, was challenged by an aristocratic woman on a distant Taira ship to shoot a fan they had placed atop a pole. Mounted on a horse galloping through waves by the shore, Nasu no Yoichi was able hit the target of the fan with a disk of the sun at first attempt, earning him the esteem even of the enemy side.

This kimono was once owned and occasionally worn in public in the 1970s by the noted New York sculptor Louise Nevelson (1899–1988), who also achieved notoriety for flamboyant fashion sense, including wearing dramatic dresses, scarves, and extra-long false eyelashes.