Description: A true rarity! Gorgeous standing gofun doll depicting an actual Geisha. Condition is near perfect; only a couple minor quibbles. This lovely girl dates to about the mid fifties at the very latest. She is however made more in the pre-war style and is a much higher quality than dolls of this era. She is not at all the typical tourist doll. Her gofun is high quality, with a lot of sheen and lustre; a lot of these dolls of this era started adulterating the gofun with plaster and they don't have this lovely lustre like this one does. No cracks or chips to her gofun head, nice and clean gofun too. She is missing a little paint on her lips; I don’t like to do paint touch up work on these gofun dolls; it often looks too bright and sticks out. She has a crack and some loss of gofun to her hand, but this is pretty common; and since the thumb is pointed inward towards her body, it’s really hard to see on display, and as a collector of these dolls for twenty years, this is not the kind of fault that dissuades me. It's all about the face and costume; which this girl has in spades. Her hair is in great set; very little in the way of fly aways, she has all her kanzashi and none of which are broken. Her kimono and obi are glorious. The quality of the silks are top notch; her kimono features some distinctive mid Showa era landscapes and arabesques; the black silk is still a very true black, versus bleached out as these silks have a habit of doing with even a little sunlight. There is no dust rot; the doll is very clean and looks to have been likely kept in a case most of her life. The tying and her obi musubi are really interesting; it’s a very oversized ginza musubi; super stylish; I feel like she may represent a Geisha from the Asakusa district of Tokyo who are well-known for wearing this musubi to this day and are very stylish and chic. There's some residue stuck in her stand that looks like apoxy to me, but I don't see anywhere on her where she might've been repaired. I got her from an estate clear out, so I think it may have gotten on her base then. She also had a pin that held the trailing hem of her kimono to the base. It wasn't doing its job anymore and was looking a little rusty so I removed it so it wouldn't get rust on her kimono. The hole it leaves is covered by the hem of her kimono. Her fan is in good condition; opens and close, but I’ve shown her displayed with her fan closed, which her hand seems to grip best and follows the line of her collars best. No odors; she’s never been exposed to cigarette smoke, my nose would know. Again, I have to be clear that this isn’t a generic doll in the least; she would’ve been made by someone extremely skilled and made for the Japanese market and not the tourist market. She is absolutely exceptional and beautiful. Almost 15inches tall.
Price: 120 USD
Location: Pensacola, Florida
End Time: 2024-11-17T19:40:32.000Z
Shipping Cost: N/A USD
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Item Specifics
All returns accepted: ReturnsNotAccepted
Country/Region of Manufacture: Japan
Culture: Japanese
