Kyoto National Museum
During the Meiji period, three men became pioneers in collecting ningyo, Shimizu Seifū (1851–1913), Nishizawa Senko (1864–1914), and Tsuboi Shōgorō (1863–1913). The three men are referred to as "Gangu San Ketsu" (the three great toy collectors). They introduced a systematic approach to collecting ningyo in an effort to preserve and document the various forms of ningyo. Shimizu, an artist and calligrapher, put his artistic ability to use by creating an illustrated catalog of his own collection of 440 ningyo dolls. The catalog was published in 1891, under the title "Unai no Tomo". Nishizawa, a banker, gathered a significant collection on "hina-ningyo". He was an active researcher, collector of stories, documents, and information relating to the development of "hina-ningyo" during the Edo period. Nishizawa's son Tekiho (1889–1965) inherited his collection but a great portion of the collection was lost in the Kanto earthquake of 1923. Tsuboi, founder of the Tokyo Anthropological Society, was the most trained of the three, and he brought a scientific element to the collecting of ningyo. Dolls have been a part of Japanese Culture for many years, and the phenomenon of collecting them is still practiced. Many collections are preserved in museums, including the Peabody Essex Museum, Kyoto National Museum, and the Yodoko Guest House.