Miss Mie

Miss Mie is by the artist Takizawa Kōryūsai II. Her personal name is Mie Mieko and her kimono crest is the mitsu tsuru kōhone (three vine hollyhock).

Miss Mie travelled extensively in the Midwest in the late winter, spring and summer of 1928. She was part of the nine-doll exhibition at the Detroit Children’s Museum in February, before being sent along with two other dolls to tour parts of Ohio. She was also part of another nine-doll display at the luxurious Brandeis Department Store in downtown Omaha, Nebraska in late March and early April of that year before being sent to also participate in the important twelve-doll exhibition at the National Education Association meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota in July.

She was placed at the Nebraska State Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska in October of 1928, where she remains today. She retains a nearly complete set of accessories, missing only her U.S.-made travel trunk.

Miss Mie returned to Japan in 1988 to be part of the important exhibition of 19 Friendship Dolls and 34 of the “blue-eyed” Doll Messengers of Goodwill organized by the Kokusai Bunka Kyōkai (Japanese International Culture Association), Sogo Department Store and the Asahi Shimbun newspaper in Tokyo. Using Sogo Department Stores as the venue, from April to September, this exhibition visited ten different locations: Yokohama, Hiroshima, Tokushima, Kobe, Sapporo, Matsuyama and several locations in the greater Tokyo area, including Chiba, Hachioji, Kashiwa and Omiya.

Through archival images, she has been determined to be the original Miss Miyazaki.