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| Japanese dolls on display in the capital |
On the 60th anniversary of India-Japan friendship, the first exhibition of 500 traditional Japanese dolls from the Edo period, some costing up to Rs70,000, is being held in New Delhi.
A total of 103 dolls from the collection have been donated to the Shankar International Dolls Museum in the national capital as a gesture of friendship.
The three-day exhibition of Edo-Kimekomi dolls, some taking two years to complete, opened yesterday at the Lalit Kala Akademi.
Japanese ambassador Akitaka Saiki, who inaugurated the event, said the showcase was an attempt to promote the ancient tradition of Japanese doll making in India.
The tradition of Edo dolls dating back to 1603 AD is part of the country’s religious and historical legacy.
It is said that the tradition of Edo dolls was invented by a high-ranking shrine priest Tadashige Takahashi in Kyoto, the old capital of Japan.
The body of the dolls is made of wood and the Kimono fabric is carefully tucked into the carved grooves of the wooden body.
The doll is completed by adding a painted head with supporting neck that is made of a light wood known as paulownia.
This method of making dolls gradually spread from old Kyoto City to Tokyo, formerly known as Edo.
Each doll requires an average of two years to complete and costs between Rs3,500 and Rs70,000.
The dolls at the showcase in India have been made by nearly 200 women of one of Tokyo’s biggest traditional doll-making organisations, “Sachiei-Kai.”
The dolls - standalone and in clusters - are narratives from Japanese children folk tales and festivals. A section of the exhibition is devoted to the seven Japanese gods of bounty.
“There are two kinds of dolls, one handmade and another made of moulds. The handmade ornate dolls cost more to make while those crafted in moulds cost around Rs3,000. The material is expensive. It takes a year of two to make a doll,” doll maker Kyoei Machida, a member of Sachiei-Kai, said.
Fifty senior women doll makers from Japan are in India for the show.