Place of origin: Toyama City, Toyama Prefecture
Donated by Shikano Ichio
Around 1848–1854, Maeda Toshiyasu, the 10th feudal lord of the Toyama domain, invited Hirose Hidenobu, a potter of the Kato family in Nagoya, to build a kiln in Chitose Palace, his retirement villa. This was the beginning of Toyama clay dolls, when Hirose’s son Yasujirō shaped and fired a figurine of a cow lying down and offered it to Tenjin, the deity of learning and scholarship. Even today, many dolls representing good luck are made in Toyama, such as Tenjin, beckoning cats, and animals in the Chinese zodiac.