fukusa

fukusa

English

Alternative forms

• foukousa

Etymology

From Japanese 帛紗.

Noun

fukusa (plural fukusas or fukusa)

1. A piece of decorated silk used to cover gifts in the Japanese tradition.
   • 1890, Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Vintage 2007, p. 122:

     he sought to accumulate the most exquisite specimens that he could find of textile and embroidered work, getting [...] Japanese Foukousas with their green-toned golds and their marvellously plumaged birds.

   • 1988, September 2, “Kitry Krause”, in Calendar‎:

     An 18th-century fukusa, an elaborately embroidered and painted cloth that is draped over a gift in place of wrapping paper, is one of 135 objects from the Katherine and Gilbert Boone collection of Japanese art that is on display at the Field Museum of Natural History through October 2.