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Miss Shiga is by the artist Iwamura Shōkensai. Her personal name is Ohmi Shigako and her kimono crest is the mitsu kashiwa (three-leaf oak).
Miss Shiga is, unfortunately, one of our missing dolls. Records indicate that she was originally placed at the Flagler Library, located in the Miami Women’s Club in Miami, Florida. She was received there in a formal ceremony in May of 1929.
Other than newspaper articles in the local press describing her arrival and festivities, no other documentation has surfaced regarding Miss Shiga. And in the absence of photos taken of her after her arrival, it is impossible to be certain if the doll sent to Miami was the original Miss Shiga, or another Friendship Doll.
From archival photographs taken at her sobetsukai formal going-away party in Shiga Prefecture in 1927, we know that her kimono featured a fan and undulating water pattern similar to the original Miss Niigata (now missing) and Miss Yamaguchi/Saga in the International Museum of Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico.