The Textilmuseum St. Gallen owns a wide range of objects, numbering over one thousand items and including numerous textiles from Japan and China that were imported into Switzerland around a century ago. In addition, there is a fine collection of woodblock prints from the Meiji period in outstanding condition, a notable collection of over 450 katagami, or stencils used for textile production in Japan, as well as other design-related objects. Importantly, the museum is the repository of Swiss textile designs (“Musterbücher”) that number into the tens of thousands examples. Until recently this part of the museum’s collection has practically not been exhibited or scientifically researched.
The survey project initiated by the University of Zurich at the department of East Asian art brought this collection into the focus of attention. Two courses focusing on Chinese textiles, study trips, as well as integration of the museum into the series of “Museum research” curricula invloves the students of our department in the work on the inventory of the objects. An exhibition in 2014, named “Kirschblüte und Edelweiss. Der Import des Exotischen” that resulted from this survey has shown cross-cultural connections and receptions of designs between East Asia and Switzerland.
The ability to work with textiles has numerous applications inside and outside of museums and academia, especially since textiles and stencils constitute some of the most widely distributed genres of East Asian art in the western world. It is our hope that the material learned during this project will help interested students in their future careers.