Five Men Doing the Work of Ten Bodies (Gonin jushin no hataraki)

Five foreign men in military-style uniforms of green, red, blue, and black tumble and interlock in a vertical acrobatic pile against a solid yellow ground, their white trousers and black boots splayed outward while one figure at right, in a blue headwrap, grips a black open umbrella and a small bell. Each figure is labeled with a cartouche naming his nationality, and a title cartouche with red ground and black characters sits in the upper right; a black-bordered rectangular frame contains the whole scene. The palette is limited to flat yellow, red, green, blue, black, and white with fine black outlines, and an artist's signature and seal appear at upper left. Utagawa Yoshifuji, 1861, nishiki-e woodblock print, oban.