Artist: Yoshitora Utagawa (active 1830-1880) Title: Time of the Boar, Courtesan Nagao and Kumoi from the House of Kinoene Series title: The Twelve Hours in the Modern World Publisher: Sawamuraya Seikichi Date: 1870 Size: 36 x 24.9 cm Condition: Fold mark with restored areas, paper residue on the back. 絵師：歌川芳虎 題名：当世十二時之内　亥ノ刻　甲子楼長尾／雲井 年代：明治3年 A Japanese clock (wadokei) is a mechanical clock that has been made to tell traditional Japanese time, a system in which daytime and nighttime are always divided into six periods whose lengths consequently change with the season. The typical clock had six numbered hours from nine to four, which counted backwards from noon until midnight. The hour numbers one, two and three were not used in Japan for religious reasons, because these numbers of strokes were used by Buddhists to call to prayer. The count ran backwards because the earliest Japanese artificial timekeepers used the burning of incense to count down the time. Dawn and dusk were therefore both marked as the sixth hour in the Japanese timekeeping system. This series by Yoshitora Utagawa plays on the theme of the Japanese time keeping system to illustrate a day in the life of Edo period courtesans.