$6,500
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Description
12" (30 cm.) Pair, mitate gosho-ningyo (parody palace dolls) depicting sumo wrestlers engaged in a tug-of-war, one posed standing and the other kneeling on right knee. The corpulent figures are carved of wood and covered in a fine white gofun with painted details, silk fiber hair arranged in different boy styles, wearing complimentary silk fringed keisho-mawashi sumo aprons done in an orange chirimen (silk crepe) with resist dyed and embroidered blossom designs and metal rabbit-shaped bosses at the hem and secured by a thick purple silk crepe obi tie belt. Edo Period, 19th century. Exhibited: Mingei International Museum (2005), Published in Ningyo: The Art of the Japanese Doll, page 62.