Utagawa Kunitoshi (歌川国歳) (artist 1868 – 1912)
Diptych: The heated stages of pregnancy (in a lighter vein) - five heads, ten bodies (Mimochi on’na natsu no tawamure – Gotō juttai no zu - 妊婦炎暑戯 一名五頭十體の図)
07/04/1881
18.75" x 14.25" Japanese woodblock print
Signature: Kunitoshi giboku 國利戯墨
Date: Meiji 14, 7th month, 4th day
明治十四年七月四日
Chiba University Library - the right-hand panel
University of California at San Francisco - via Ritsumeikan University
Chiba University Library - the left-hand panel Comic diptych of pregnant women - five heads and ten bellies with babies depicting the monthly stages of pregnancy.
Traditionally in Japan when a baby is born it is considered one year old on the day of its birth. As an aside, everyone became a year older on New Year's day. That means that if a baby is born on what is known in the West as late December, like December 30th, it is one year old, but two days later it is recalculated as being two years old, while in the West it would only be 3 days old. This makes the calculation of a famous Japanese person's age rather complex and perhaps a bit confusing.
This 5 headed/10 bodied print strengthens the traditional Japanese belief system. If you enlarge the image you will see that each of the ten figures starting on the right has accompanying labels showing the development of the fetus from the first month (一月) to the tenth month (十月) on the far left .
comic prints (giga - 戯画 / kyōga - 狂画) (author)