Background

The dolls of this collection have been given to Dorothée Lauren Krapf over a period of more than 25 years by her godfather, Mr. Philippe Froidevaux of Geneva (Switzerland) who experiences a long-standing fascination by Japanese history and culture. The dolls have typically been part of anniversary and Christmas presents.

The initial, very positive evaluation of this collection was performed by Prof. Dr. Hans Bjarne Thomsen, full professor at the insitute of art and history, division far east, of the university of Zurich. During most of the summer 2015, two masters graduates of that institute, Mrs Cénit De Sousa and Mrs Sara Gianera worked very diligently on this collection. They analysed the dolls in great detail, catalogized, photographed and finally archived them. They also wrote the general introduction as well as the introductory part to all the different styles of dolls.

With the invaluable support and know-how of Medhow & Ark IT Stäfa (Zurich, Switzerland), this catalogue was transformed into an electronic form and this has made the collection easily accessible via this website. The concept was implemented by Ardit Meti und Arber Mehmeti (junior web programmers) under the guidance of Joniko Cuko (senior web programmer).

Use of this collection

First of all, we hope that you will be taken und charmed by this beautiful collection of Japanese dolls and hope that you have fun navigating through this site and learning new stuff about this important aspect of Japanese culture and history.

In addition to this publication, we are happy to lend out the total or parts of this collection for expositions to museums or for special exhibits organized by others such as in schools/universities, gastronomy/hotels, tourism, cultural exchange programs and others.

When interested please contact us.