Over Robe (Uchikake) with Genji Wheels and Wild Ginger Leaves

The lustrous white satin-weave silk ground of this elegant samurai woman’s over robe is patterned with large bamboo, an unusual motif that points to the early nineteenth century. Decorated all over with embroidered wild ginger leaves in gold, green, light brown, and purple, as well as with purple lozenge-shaped crests, the robe bears a main design featuring the wheels of an imperial ox-drawn carriage, or Gosho-guruma. Court carriages, which were often depicted in paintings associated with the literary classic The Tale of Genji, are sometimes referred to as “Genji-guruma”; the term came to be used for the wheels as well. Combined with the wild ginger, the cartwheel imagery refers to Lady Aoi, Prince Genji’s wife, and might allude to the tale’s ninth chapter, “Leaves of Wild Ginger” (Aoi), in which Aoi’s attendants obstructed and damaged the carriage of Genji’s lover during a grand procession. A similar composition was published in Hinagata yoshino-yama, a woodblock-printed pattern book from 1765.