Round fan

団扇 uchiwa

Round fan

The flat round fan of summer festivals and evening cooling-off; a light summer motif.

From China in ancient times; mass-produced in the Edo period

The flat fan descends from Chinese ceremonial fans, and uchiwa-shaped objects appear in Japan from the Kofun period. Nara and Heian aristocrats used large ornate ones; the bamboo-rib-and-paper form appeared in the late Muromachi period. In the Edo period woodblock printing made printed fans cheap, with ukiyo-e and kabuki-actor designs by Toyokuni, Kuniyoshi and Hiroshige, and uchiwa became an everyday summer accessory.

Marugame (Kagawa), Bōshū (Chiba) and Kyō-uchiwa (Kyoto) are the three great fan crafts; free advertising uchiwa are handed out at summer festivals.

Technique catalog · draft for review

Every way to wrap, carry and wear a furoshiki.

The furoshiki.com archive, sliced into annotated steps with plain directions, plus techniques found in research.