Japanese Doll Ichimatsu Ningyou with Porcelain 1960 Showa

Dimensions:
H25×33×19 cm

Ichimatsu dolls represent little girls or boys, correctly proportioned and usually with flesh-colored skin and glass eyes. The original ichimatsu were named after an 18th-century kabuki actor, and must have represented an adult man, but since the late 19th century the term has applied to child dolls, usually made to hold in the arms, dress, and pose (either with elaborately made joints or with floppy cloth upper arms and thighs). Baby boy dolls with mischievous expressions were most popular in the late 19th and early 20th century, but in 1927 the friendship doll exchange involved the creation of 58 32 in (810 mm) dolls representing little girls, to be sent as a gift from Japan to the United States, and the aesthetic of these dolls influenced dollmakers to emulate this type of a solemn, gentle-looking little girl in elaborate kimono.