Origin : Japan
Made of : porcelain - potery
Classification : things / masks
Maker : ?
About "Hyottoko and Okame characters" (hyottoko - 火男 / okame - おかめ) :
Hyottoko (man) and Okame (woman, called also Otafuku or Uzumi) are traditional theater characters played using a mask. They form a pair of funny and popular characters of the Kyogen, a form of theatre consisting in performing comic interludes in Noh plays.
About "mask" (omen - お面) :
For ceturies, masks have been used in Japan for rituals and performances (dance, theatre, festivals and Shinto or Buddhist rituals).
The majority of japanese masks are carved from wood and painted with a layer of lacquer. They are often covered with a kaolin clay coat with polychromatic pigments.
Noh actors use nearly 80 different masks representing different characters (person, hero, devil, ghost or legendary animal).