(sold) Vintage kokeshi signed by Yashima Kiyomi, Matagoro workshop, Akita-sugi cedar with Sho-Chiku-Bai mon, Showa period 1970s

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Item details

The Akita-sugi grain does most of the work here. It runs the full length of the body in wide amber and cream bands that shift as the light changes, giving a 31 cm column of cedar the presence of something larger. The form is deliberate in its simplicity: a collar line, a face reduced to brow, eye, and lip, and at the front of the body one small painted plaque. There is nothing here that should not be here.

The Matagorō workshop has worked Akita-sugi cedar from the mountains of Daisen in Akita Prefecture for approximately three hundred years, passing the name 又五郎 from generation to generation. Yashima Kiyomi, the 9th generation, is known within the lineage as the "Sho-Chiku-Bai kokeshi maker," the one who made this particular symbol the defining mark of his work.

Akita-sugi was considered difficult wood for kokeshi, too soft and grainy for conventional turning, yet the Matagorō workshop built its entire identity on this material. The result is a doll shaped by three centuries of commitment to one tree.

Specifications:

• Artist: Yashima Kiyomi, known by the workshop name Matagorō (又五郎), 9th generation

• Where and when was it made: Daisen, Akita Prefecture, Japan. Shōwa period, ca. 1970s to 1980s, consistent with the active period of Yashima Kiyomi, 9th generation Matagorō.

• Style: Shingata-style kokeshi from a lineage at the boundary between traditional dento and sōsaku in the typology

• Height: approx. 31 cm

• Weight: approx. 315 g

• Authenticity: Signed by the maker.