Seven Carved Wooden Musicians, Imperial Court, Signed Boxes, Edo Period

Live Auction

11" (28 cm.) Each has carved wooden head and hands with lustrous gofun finish, painted facial features with refined expression, narrow eyes, teeth, painted sky-brows indicating nobility, black painted pate under silk fiber hair in rare very extended length, and each is wearing a lavish 12-layer padded silk court robe (junihitoe) with extended gauze train (mo) having hand-painted leaf and floral design; the outer jackets feature a chrysantheum pattern, and there are dragons interwoven on the outer sleeves. Notably each face is distinctive, as are the hand which are posed to hold the particular instrument which each plays. The instrument include lute, zither, long flute, short flute, flame drum, drum, and pipe flute, and are executed of particularly fine quality. Excellent condition, minor typical frailty to silk edging on few. Edo period, ealy 1800s, Shichinin-Bayasha. The splendid set is notable for three very distinctive reasons: their luxury grand size, their number of seven figures (usually five), and their being women (usually boys). Too, the sumptuouness of costume, the quality of musical instruments, the unique posing of each body to accomodate to the instrument being played, the superb quality of gofun, and that each owns its original signed wooden box, enhances their value. The set is shown in Ningyo, The Art of the Japanese Doll by Alan Scott Pate, pages 122 and 123.