no fish swims a straight line

so i am sitting minding my own business reading my email, and suddenly an announcement brings this: a rug. i study the website where it's featured. i know this print. it's by candace wheeler. candace wheeler is, however, mentioned nowhere.

so my first thought is of jr burrows & company, where i have seen the gorgeous lace curtain of this design for many years. i was fortunate enough to find mr burrows himself, a most fascinating fellow. with his help i was able to pinpoint his source: a portier (curtain hung over a doorway) designed by wheeler, and currently in the collection of the incredible mark twain house.

he further pointed me to a photo of the textile itself, reverse-printed on denim (a very common practice) and embroidered with silk, in a book i already had (the art that is life). as you can see, it's quite amazing. though it's not known the original place- ment of the piece, we do know that candace whee- ler, as part of the assoc- iated artists, an interior decorating firm assembled by louis comfort tiffany, is credited with its design.

to my eyes, however, it looks enough japanese to have been at the very least inspired but more likely directly copied from a japanese design.

i asked mr burrows if he had any idea of the source and he didn't. i then called the rug company; they had the attribution of the associated artists but not wheeler, and they had no idea of any japanese source.

so i started hunting. i thought first katagami -- it easily looks like something that began as a stencil, and in fact it did start as a stencil in candace wheeler's hands. i also thought maybe lacquer, with its intricate inlays. but i came up zero on all accounts.

i could find nothing that was exact, though many many samples of things that were obviously from the same culture.

maybe candace wheeler was just that astonishing.

p.s. mr burrows told me some things that just blew my ears out of the water (or something). in wholly unexpected ways (to me) he has added a surprising new development to the fenollosa/dow story. stay tuned.