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Description
16 1/2" (42 cm.) Pair, full-formed tachi-bina (standing hina) with heads of wood and covered in gofun with painted details including okymayu skybrows, and dressed in formal yusoku textiles. Including Nagako dressed in a long uchiki (outer robe) in the futae orimono (double brocade) technique with a hishi (diamond) ground and scattered roundels of kikyo (bellflowers) over layers of hitoe unlined kimono, with nagabakama long trousers, holding a bone ogi fan, and having silk fiber hair arranged formally in the sasegami style with small metal crown; and Hirohito in a formal black sukotai ho outer robe with dragon roundels, and sashinuki trousers with the kani-arare checkerboard pattern, holding a shaku scepter in his right hand, long sword at hip and formal kanmuri court cap, each posed on tatami mat base stands. Minor fading and loss of silk hair fibers. Taisho Era, 1924. Exhibited Japan Society (1996). Published in Ningyo: The Art of the Human Figure, p. 72. The historic Tachi-bina Kinen-ningyo (Memorial Standing Hina Doll Pair) commemorated the 1924 Sekon-no-gi (Imperial Wedding) of Michinomiya Hirohito (1901-1989) to Princess Nagako Kuni (1903-2000). The wedding of Hirohito and Nagako came less that six months after the Great Kanto Earthquake of September 1923 which devastated much of Yokohama and huge swaths of Tokyo, including the doll making area of Ningyo-cho in the Nihonbashi district. This set, however, appears to have been made in Kyoto. Their wedding provided a much needed uplift for the country and was widely commemorated in paintings, photographs, postcards, souvenir objects and, of course, ningyo. This set was possibly done for the March 1924 Hina Matsuri Season which would have come soon after their wedding.