Spectacular Large-Scale Kyoho-bina Imperial Couple, Edo Period

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23" (58 cm.) h. with crown woman. 33" with crown man. Large-scale Kyoho-bina imperial couple for the Hina Matsuri Girl's day celebration, each with well carved wood head covered in gofun with painted details including blackened teeth and okimayu skybrows, real hair in a long single braid for her and in a tight topknot for him, hands with long attenuated fingers. Wearing matching blue silk brocade textiles featuring bold dragon roundels and stylized flowers, she in a simulated junihitoe twelve-layered robe with a large kake-obi sash closed by an elaborately rendered knot and securing a mo gauze train behind and billowing hakama court trousers, sporting a metal crown ornamented with a phoenix; and he seated with feet pressed together, the front of his kimono depicted as a layered series of panels secured at the shoulder with brocade wrapped buttons, wearing a gold eboshi court cap with a tall ei tail extended upward, long curving sword at hip and shaku scepter in right hand. Old repairs to faces, fading to textiles, losses to hair, shaku replaced. Edo Period, mid-18th century. Exhibited Mingei International Museum (2005). Published in Ningyo: The Art of the Japanese Doll, page 99. Kyoho-bina emerged in the first half of the 18th century as a flamboyant manifestation of the growing popularity of the Hina-matsuri among the merchant class. Restricted from lavish outward displays of wealth by social norms and government policy, the merchant class thus enjoyed demonstrating their wealth more privately. Ultimately the government also put restriction on the size and materials used in Hina dolls in order to curb this "unseemly" tendency.