Introduction

Sylvia Lynd once memorably described KM as being ‘not unlike one of those little dolls that, in Japan’s less commercial days, were among the most precious and transparent treasures of one’s toy cupboard’; Virginia Woolf was likewise struck by ‘her look of a Japanese doll, with the fringe combed quite straight across her forehead’. Japanese arts and culture had long fascinated KM, nurtured especially in the context of Japonisme at the turn of the century, so it is not so very surprising she KM should have bought two Japanese dolls, and on occasion loved to invest them with names, personalities and, to a certain extent, independent lives of their own. ‘Ribni’, or Ribnikov, the male doll, was one of them, his partner, O Hara San, the female doll.

The dolls appear to have been purchased just after KM visited the Japan–British exhibition, which was held in London from 14 May to 29 October 1910. As was the case with most such bi-national or international events, the exhibition was a key moment in Anglo-Japanese and Japan– Europe cultural diplomacy. Japan was bolstering its public image in the wake of its military successes against Russia in 1905 and the renewal of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, and both sides were seeking to finalise major trade deals; foregrounding the refinement and elegance of Japanese arts, home decorations and lifestyles was an essential part of the Japanese organisers’ agenda. The image-bolstering impact certainly worked in the case of KM, inspiring her to arrange her home at the time (Cheyne Walk, in Chelsea) along minimalist, Japan-inspired lines, to acquire a number of iconic Japanese daily objects, to adopt a number of oriental effects in her hairstyle and clothing (notably a striking, patterned kimono), and to read a number of Japanese novels, poems and eye-witness accounts. Ribni’s partner, O Hara San, would seem to owe her name to these readings, a combination of two exquisite female portraits in the poetry collection From the Eastern Sea – ‘O Haru’ and ‘O Hana San’. O Hara San met with a sad fate after accompanying KM to France in 1915: she was packaged up and sent back to keep JMM company, but her head fell off during the journey, as he sadly reported back.