Miss Nagano

Miss Nagano is by the artist Hirata Gōyō II.

In June of 1929, she was placed in the Roger Williams Park Museum in Providence, Rhode Island.

Not much is known of her life there after her original placement. It wasn’t until 1983, while the museum was conducting a large inventorying of their holdings, that it was discovered that while nearly all of her accessories were there, the doll itself was missing. 

Her fate remained a mystery until an auction company discovered her sitting on a piano during a local estate sale in 2010. Sadly, however, she had lost her kimono, and her hair wig had been shorn into a short bob cut. Although the museum was contacted, they opted not to try and reacquire her, and so she was sold at auction in January of 2011.

She was then taken back to Japan for some much need conservation work. At this time, she was also re-outfitted with a vintage child’s kimono from the late 1920s.

During this time, using archival images, she was identified as the original Miss Aichi.

She now belongs in a private collection.