Miss Hiroshima

Original Name:
Miss Yamaguchi
Personal Name:
Hiroshima Hiroko
Artist:
Takizawa Kôryûsai II
Location:
Baltimore Art Museum
City:
Baltimore
State:
Maryland

Miss Hiroshima is by the artist Takizawa Kōryūsai II. Her personal name is Hiroshima Hiroko and her kimono crest is the musubi karigane (encircled wild goose).

Miss Hiroshima was originally placed in the Baltimore Art Museum in 1928. In 1933 she was transferred as a long-term loan to the Pratt Library there in Baltimore where she remained on prominent display until the outbreak of the war in 1941.

Almost unique among the Friendship Dolls, she remained on public display during the early years of the war and was only removed following the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945, at which time she was returned to the Baltimore Art Museum for safekeeping. 

In 1973, local resident Mary Sugiyama arranged for Miss Hiroshima to return to Japan for conservation, becoming the first Friendship Doll to return to Japan. She would return to Japan again in 1988 to be part of the large exhibition of Friendship Dolls organized by the Kokusai Bunka Kyõkai (Japanese International Culture Association) in Tokyo.

She retains a number of accessories including her ship ticket and passport, but is missing her original base. A number of the lacquered furnishings bear the yamazakura mountain cherry crest belonging to Miss Nagasaki.

Through archival photographs she has been identified as the original Miss Yamaguchi. 

Kimono crest:
Musubi karigane (Encircled Wild Goose)
Dogu (furnishing) crest:
Yamazakura (Mountain Cherry)
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