TURNING JAPANESE
Kokeshi are one of Japan’s most intriguing folk art traditions. With no arms, no legs, and oversized heads, the dolls spark very different reactions. ‘Some people immediately fall in love with them,’ says Michael Horner, a dealer who specialises in Japanese antiques, ‘but others find them a bit disturbing.’
Very little documentation exists to explain their roots, but kokeshi were originally made in Tōhoku, a sparsely populated region of mountains, forests, and volcanoes to the north of Japan’s main island. Michael loves the romance of the dolls’ origins: ‘Centuries ago, during the long, harsh winters, local farmers and artisans made the simple wooden dolls to while away the time and give their children something to play with. In the 1800s,
