Palmer Cox (American, 1840-1924)

"Samurai" brownie on an ox. This has nothing to do with Japanese dolls, except that it is a paper doll of a Japanese character. Cox was an important comic author-illustrator, and his Brownies were universally known. In The Brownies Around the World (New York: Century 1894) the little guys visit Japan, but it is not a long visit--they are not happy with the heathen Japanese and make fun of the Kamakura Buddha.

probably ca. 1890

Although these examples have lost their bases, they originally had identifying text (e.g. "Japanese empress"). The emperor or Mikado is a recognizable portrait of Mutsuhito, the Meiji emperor who came to the throne in 1868, at the age of 16, and ruled until his death in 1912. He presided over the rise of Japan from a potential victim of Western imperialism to its own place as a world power. He and his empress lived a complex life, divided between traditional Japanese life and clothing (such as they wear here) and a Western lifestyle. The faces on these dolls are particularly attractive, with no attempt at "oriental" caricature. They are folded over so as to have a back as well as a front.

Paper doll, 1900?, US; Charles E. Graham & co.

Cuddly Dolls with Dresses has Mee Tu on the covers, American children inside. Mee Tu wears Chinese clothes and has a Chinese hat and jacket, (and a faux-Chinese name, in the style of the Mikado) but also three kimono. A little boy doll with rosy cheeks and fancy shave is peeking over the shoulder of one kimono, echoing the popular knowledge that Japanese children carried dolls (and when they were older real babies--see Japanese Twins below) on their backs.

Paper Doll, San Francisco Sunday Call supplement

"Boy Soldiers of All Nations: the Little Jap and his Soldier Clothes." 

He wears a flowered short kimono over which goes a military uniform. He might date from about 1905, when there was a great deal of interest in the Japanese victory over the Russians. As in the "Plucky Little Jap" Shredded Wheat ad, and the Little Jap cigarettes, a "Little Jap" here is a soldier who is only "little" in height, not power.

Sheila Young, Ladies Home Journal 7/1910

Lettie's "Married Sister sends her pictures of a Japanese Girl and a Japanese Boy." The boy has a short haircut (he looks like a Japanese girl), the girl a fancy but not very authentic one, and the doll a very typical "split peach." He has a kite; there is a girl doll for the girl, and two lanterns. Each child has 4 costumes but the doll has none.

Grace Drayton (?) Paper doll (cut out), 1917, US
 

Blonde Dolly in white undies and her Japanese doll in long white chemise both have kimono, plus Dolly has a wig. 

Original set included "Dolly's Jap Dog", a Chin.

(corrected 3/18/2004)

M. Emma Musselman (magazine unknown) 1921, US; 
 

Tamaki "looks just like a little Japanese doll." She likes American play better than Japanese, but holds a little ichimatsu. One "Japanese costume" and two American outfits.

Jesse Louise Taylor (based on Lucy Fitch Perkins's book The Japanese Twins), Ladies' Home Journal 6/22

The Japanese Twins (1912) seems to have been one of the most popular of Perkins's series of books on intertnational brother-sister twins. These paper dolls were accompanied by  a new story about the Twins with extra illustrations  by the author.

One of the girl's outfits includes her baby brother on her back. Compare Mee Tu, above, with a doll on her back.

Gabriel, 1929, US (one of a series of girls from various countries)
 

Matsue has a bob, 2 Western outfits with coat and 2 kimono, In one of the kimono outfits she is holding a Western doll.

Children's Play Mate  magazine, May 1936

This paper doll by Fern Bissel Peat is said to represent a real doll--perhaps one of the Friendship dolls.