Carved Wooden Woman Known as Yamauba with Bare-Breasted Costuming, Circa 1900

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11" (28 cm.) Well-modeled woman with one-piece head and torso with very fine gofun finish, oval face with inset glass eyes, aquiline nose, open mouth, tongue, slender elongated throat, upper torso with shapely bosom, black silk fiber hair drawn from face and captured at the back into extended-length, feathered painting around the sides of face to enhance the wig, armature upper arms and legs, carved hands and feet, expressively-posed fingers, posed seated, wearing cloth kimono in tiny checkered pattern, red silk lining at collar and sleeve edges, and very rare black velvet (birodo) accents. Excellent condition. Meiji era, circa 1900, portraying Yamauba, although well known in Japanese legend, few actual examples of her as a doll are known to exist. Bountiful legends, some quite cruel, exist about her, yet in other instances she is depicted as the loving mother of the orphan Kintaro, or simply as a woman of nature.