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Doll - Artifacts

Description
Hanasaka Jiisan story figures of an old man pounding mochi, and old woman with a bucket and a cherry tree A: Cherry tree, H: 9", W: 5", D: 2", trunk made of small reeds wrapped with paper resembling cherry bark, two branches of paper wrapped wire stems with many magenta and white paper flowers, a few painted coated paper buds, yellow thread sepels. B: Old Woman, H: 4.5", W: 5", D: 2.5" on one knee, dressed in a purple brocade kimono with pink and blue floral patterns, red lining and white underrobe, an olive obi with red pattern. She has long white fiber hair tied with orange and white thread, gofun covered wood carved head, inset glass eyes, carved wrinkles, red painted mouth, painted carved wood hands. She holds a bucket between her upheld hands C: Old Man, H: 6", W: 3", D: 2" standing with legs apart (stick in center holds him on base), arms outstretched. He wears a green vest with purple, silver, brown and yellow floral patterns over a gold colored kimono, beige, green, blue and yellow plaid patterned knicker-like pants, and a purple obi; green leggings, white painted feet. He has short white fiber hair, shaved pate and topknot, bushy white fiber eyebrows, gofun covered wood carved head with wrinkles, inset glass eyes and red painted mouth. He holds a mallet (D) in his hands which have curled fingers. The Hanasaka Jiisan story is about a kind old man and his wife whose dog, Shiro, uncovers gold in their farmyard. A mean neighbor sees this discovery and asks to borrow the dog who only digs up garbage, so the mean man kills him. The kind couple bury their dog and plant a pine tree on his grave. The tree grows fast and they cut it down to make a mochi morter because the dog had loved mochi cakes. As they pound the mochi it turns into gold. The mean man asks to borrow the mortar, but when he pounded mochi it turned into garbage, so the man burned the mortar. The kind man took the ashes and scattered them around his garden. Suddenly in the middle of winter cherry trees bloomed. A passing prince saw this and asked the old man to make his trees bloom too. He did this and was rewarded by the prince and became known as Sir Old-Man-Who-Makes-Trees-Blossom. (Japanese Children's Favorite Stories, p. 87) D: Mallet, L: 4.25", made of wood with a dowel handle and an unpainted bullet shaped head 1.5" x .375" E: Wooden Morter, H: 1.75", Diam.: 1.875", sits in front of the man, round shaped with a depression in the top, inside of which is a white mound of clay simulating mochi and 7 gold colored oval pieces of paper simulating gold coins. F: Platform, H: 1.25", W: 10", D: 3.75", black lacquered wood with gold painted floral design on front, open at back. G: Bucket, H: 1", Diam.: 1", round, straight sides, paper mache, painted pink and brown stripes on outside, tied with light green cord in two places.
Object ID
1990.040.052