A soft rinzu (figured silk) juban featuring stenciled flying crane motifs and faux-shibori clouds, with white freehand painted highlights on the cranes to accentuate their whiteness.   49" from sleeve-end to sleeve-end x 58" height.  The main symbolic meaning of the Japanese red-crowned crane is long life. With their lifespan of some thirty years, cranes were thought to live not just decades but thousands of years, becoming virtually synonymous with immortality. At Japanese weddings it is a symbol of loyalty. Also associated with the qualities of honour and wisdom, cranes were believed to be intermediaries between heaven and earth, a messenger of the gods to humans, thus symbolizing the spiritual ability to enter a higher state of consciousness This juban would have been likely worn underneath a furisode by either the bride prior or during the main wedding ceremony.  Of the hundreds of thousand of kimonos we have seen over the years, this is the only one we recall that the designs cross uninterrupted through all seams, including collar and where the front closes. To accomplish this time-consuming and expensive task, the artists would likely have created two or more rolls of cloth (usually only one roll is necessary per kimono) in order to realize all the required matching.