Object Description
A large Meiji period silk embroidery of a sea eagle,
worked in a cream, brown and black palette with gold thread highlights, showing a sea eagle perched on a rocky outcrop scanning the frothing waves beneath him for fish, within a black brocade border decorated with dragon roundels, modern frame. Japanese, c1890.
Framed H 73 ¼” (188cm), W 56” (142.5cm) £48,500
Footnote: Sea eagles are associated with strength and power and feature widely in Japanese works of art. The Ashmolean Museum’s exhibition ‘Threads of Silk and Gold, Ornamental Textiles from Meiji Japan’, 2012, p105 shows two embroideries on this subject.