This kimono for a young boy depicts Momotarō, the ‘peach boy’, a hero of Japanese folklore. According to legend, an old, childless couple found a peach floating down a river and when they cut the fruit open to eat it, a boy emerged saying he had been sent from heaven to be their son. Some years later Momotarō and his animal friends set off to fight a band of marauding oni (demons) on a distant island. They won their fight and returned home with treasure. On this kimono, Momotarō is shown with a cart of treasures and a banner, surmounted by a peach, which reads Nihonichi (‘Japan number one’). Momotarō was a very popular figure in Japan from the 1920s through to the years of the Asia-Pacific War. He was the subject of many films and children’s cartoons of the period such as Nihonichi Momotarō of 1928.