The Midnight Botan — Japanese Ceremonial Silk Wall Tapestry, Botan Peony in Imperial Purple

Imperial purple. White peonies at midnight. Painted once, on silk, by hand.

At a glance: A hand-painted yūzen obi in ancient imperial purple with white peonies and plum blossom, mounted between hardwood bars at about 100 × 35 cm. One exists. Japanese ceremonial silk, finished at the Renaras atelier, Amsterdam; ships worldwide.

The Midnight Botan is mounted from a hand-painted Japanese ceremonial silk obi. The base was dyed in Kodai Murasaki (古代紫), the deep purple historically reserved for Japanese aristocracy and forbidden to those below the highest court ranks. Across this ground, a Japanese painter rendered botan peonies and ume blossoms in white, applied in the yūzen (友禅) tradition, freehand, with the irreversibility every painted silk requires of its maker. The painting was done on the obi itself before the obi was ever worn — a textile painted once, intended to be seen at the back of a kimono, never repeated.

The Renaras atelier cut a length from the painted obi, redesigned the composition for vertical wall format, and lined the back with undyed support cloth to hold the silk against the natural pull of its own weight. The piece is mounted between handmade hardwood bars at the top and bottom, finished with a leather hanging cord, and supplied ready to hang. The bars are part of the work, not a separate acquisition. Nothing about the painted surface has been altered; the silk hangs as it was painted.

A wall tapestry of this kind asks for one room only. The bedroom of a residence where calm is the ambient register, the corridor of a private gallery, the sitting room of a boutique hotel suite where the guest should encounter the unexpected and stay with it. Imperial colour rarely wants company.

Renaras: existing Japanese ceremonial silk, preserved at gallery scale and brought into rooms where it can be seen.

Each tapestry arrives with its own passport from the atelier — a handmade record of the obi's first life, the composition that was cut from it, the lining and mounting it received, signed and dated in Amsterdam.

Each tapestry arrives complete with its mounting hardware. For private viewings and hospitality enquiries, contact the atelier.

One silk. One story. One piece. Never repeated.