Passed
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Description
10" (25 cm.) The Hina Matsuri vignette depicts two shicho footmen with heads and hands of wood covered in gofun with painted details and highly individualized expressions, silk hair, wearing matching green silk gauze outer jackets with their sleeves thrown back to reveal purple chirimen silk crepe kimono tucked into silk brocade hakama trousers and lacquered paper eboshi-style caps, swords at hips, mounted on wood stands, watching two papier mache roosters engaged in battle, each with silk crepe head, real feathered body and perched on silk-wrapped wire legs. Meiji Era, circa 1900. Tori-awase cock fights were, for many centuries, an integral part of the Girl's Day festival, considered an important component in the ritual purification and cleansing symbolized by the festival. Although an essential rite, very few ningyo capturing this specific theme are extant. Shicho footmen were typically located on the bottom row of the doll display holding items helpful to the comfort of the dairi-bina (imperial couple) and their faces, rather than neutral, are frequently given expressions of happiness, anger and sadness. So the expressiveness of this shicho pair is in keeping with that tradition.