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Description
22" (56 cm.) including base. Tall standing figure of a woman depicting the famed 8th century Chinese beauty, Yang Kuei-fei (Jp. Yokihi), having elegant and elongated face covered in gofun with painted details featuring wide set, narrow eyes, high forehead, real hair formed into an elaborate looped chignon and ornamented with a papier mache phoenix crown, and clothed in a richly distinctive Chinese style consisting of layered silk brocade textiles with purple fringe, birodo (black velvet) belt worn high, a broad silk brocade collar also fringed in purple silk crepe, large Chinese style shoes with detailed nyoi (sacred mushroom) shaped toe caps in red and gold, carrying an ewer in her hand, displayed on a black lacquered base. Minor losses to hair, minor wear to crown and ewer. Edo Period, 19th century. Exhibited Mingei International Museum (2005), published in Ningyo: The Art of the Japanese Doll, page 204. Many of the classics from Chinese literature were actively incorporated into Japanese culture as well. Yokihi, Asia's answer to Helen of Troy, is a historic beauty who so drove an emperor to distraction that she was executed to restore peace and stability to the kingdom, events immortalized by the Chinese poet Po Chu-i, in his Song of Everlasting Sorrow, published in 806.