Around 1940, well before he was designated as a Living National Treasure (人間国宝), Keisuke Serizawa started elaborating designs around the forty-seven graphs of the cursive Japanese phonetic script known as Hiragana. Read downward from the right in columns, the syllables are arranged in the same traditional order as in an ancient poem that uses each of them once only, starting i-ro-ha: which is why this design is named Iroha Syllables.
The design of this cotton handkerchief is the more graphic result achieved around the theme, which Serizawa generally preferred during the 60s and 70s.
Made of high quality Shantung cotton, it measures 53x53cm.