A melancholic image of a young Japanese woman with a slightly modern Japanese hairstyle. She is holding her hand, hidden in a piece of cloth, close to her chin. It makes her look very bashful and shy. During the early 20th century, picture postcards of bijin (beautiful women) were extremely popular in Japan (see Woman with Rose)

This is a very lovely photograph of my favourite postcard models!

I believe her name is Momotaro, and she was a maiko / geiko in Kyoto during Taisho era. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find out any further information about her, but she appears to have been a very popular model at the time!

I’ve spent many years collecting postcards of her (here is my collection of Momotaro postcards) and even have one from the same photo shoot (you’ll notice her haneri, kimono and hairstyle is the same).

Thank you for sharing!

# Naomi Graham · 2009-07-29

Thanks, Naomi, for sharing that information. I just did a quick search in Japanese, but Momotaro is such a common name because of the fairy-tale that I wasn’t able to find anything. I am amazed at how many cards you have of her. Even more amazing, somehow I managed to find a card that is not yet part of your large collection.

# Kjeld Duits · 2009-07-29