Biography
Utagawa Toyonobu (歌川豊宣, circa 1859-1886) was a short-lived but prolific late-Utagawa school printmaker of the early Meiji era whose work centered on warrior prints (musha-e) and historical narrative series, with the Shinsen Taikōki (Newly Selected Records of the Taikō Hideyoshi) of 1883-1884 as his signature project. He was a pupil of Toyohara Kunichika, the dominant Meiji actor-print designer, and the line of his stylistic descent runs through Kunichika back to Utagawa Toyokuni III (Kunisada I), making Toyonobu one of the youngest documented affiliates of the Utagawa school's main lineage. He should not be confused with the earlier and unrelated Ishikawa Toyonobu (1711-1785), nor with Utagawa Toyoharu or Utagawa Toyokuni; the character 宣 (nobu) in his go is distinct from the 信 used in Ishikawa Toyonobu's name, and his career belongs to the brief late-Edo-to-early-Meiji moment when Utagawa-school printmaking was already in retreat before photography and Western lithography.
His output was concentrated in the early 1880s, when Meiji-era publishers sought to repackage the Sengoku and early-Edo military pasts for a popular audience newly literate in historical narrative through woodblock series and illustrated novels. The Shinsen Taikōki, issued in dozens of triptychs and single sheets across 1883-1884, retold the rise of Toyotomi Hideyoshi from foot-soldier to taikō (retired regent), drawing on the long popular Taikōki tradition while updating its imagery with the bright aniline reds and purples that became the visual signature of early-Meiji color printing. Toyonobu's contributions to the series, of which the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston holds a substantial cluster, document key episodes of the Hideyoshi legend, from his early service under Matsushita Kahei through the unification campaigns against Shikoku and the invasion of Korea, with set-piece confrontations between historical generals serving as the principal narrative units. The series functioned for its Meiji audience as both popular history and patriotic spectacle, casting Hideyoshi's continental campaigns as a precedent for the era's own imperial ambitions in Korea and Taiwan.
Outside the Shinsen Taikōki, his most ambitious project was a multi-sheet treatment of the Battle of Okehazama (Bishū Okehazama kassen), the 1560 engagement in which the young Oda Nobunaga ambushed and killed the powerful daimyo Imagawa Yoshimoto, an episode that founded the Sengoku unification narrative and was therefore central to the late-nineteenth-century Japanese understanding of national history. The Harvard Art Museums preserves a triptych and several individual sheets of his Okehazama series, dated December 1882 and 1883, which together illustrate the panoramic battle-scene format favored by Meiji warrior-print designers and demonstrate his command of large-scale narrative composition. Additional surviving prints depict samurai duels, ninja attacks on Hideyoshi's camp, and other moments drawn from the broader Sengoku and early-Edo military-history corpus, with collections at the Honolulu Museum of Art and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria preserving works that complement the larger MFA Boston and Harvard holdings.
Key Facts
- Active Period
- 1859–1886
- Nationality
- 🇯🇵Japan
- Movements
- Meiji/Taishō PrintsUkiyo-e
- Works Indexed
- 18
Frequently Asked Questions
Utagawa Toyonobu (歌川豊宣, circa 1859-1886) was a short-lived but prolific late-Utagawa school printmaker of the early Meiji era whose work centered on warrior prints (musha-e) and historical narrative series, with the Shinsen Taikōki (Newly Selected Records of the Taikō Hideyoshi) of 1883-1884 as his signature project. He was a pupil of Toyohara Kunichika, the dominant Meiji actor-print designer, and the line of his stylistic descent runs through Kunichika back to Utagawa Toyokuni III (Kunisada I), making Toyonobu one of the youngest documented affiliates of the Utagawa school's main lineage. He should not be confused with the earlier and unrelated Ishikawa Toyonobu (1711-1785), nor with Utagawa Toyoharu or Utagawa Toyokuni; the character 宣 (nobu) in his go is distinct from the 信 used in Ishikawa Toyonobu's name, and his career belongs to the brief late-Edo-to-early-Meiji moment when Utagawa-school printmaking was already in retreat before photography and Western lithography.
Utagawa Toyonobu was active from 1859 to 1886. They were associated with the Meiji/Taishō Prints and Ukiyo-e movements.
Utagawa Toyonobu's work was shaped by the Meiji/Taishō Prints and Ukiyo-e traditions in Japanese woodblock printmaking. Meiji/Taishō Prints: Meiji and Taishō era prints (1868–1926) bridge the transition from traditional ukiyo-e to the modern shin-hanga and sosaku-hanga movements. Ukiyo-e: ## What is ukiyo-e? Ukiyo-e ([浮世絵](/glossary/ukiyo-e)) — literally "pictures of the floating world" — is the Edo-period Japanese print and painting tradition that flourished from roughly 1660 to 1868, depicting the pleasures of urban life in Edo (modern Tokyo): courtesans, kabuki actors, sumo wrestlers, famous landscapes, and seasonal beauties.
Original prints by Utagawa Toyonobu can be found in collections including Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Harvard Art Museums, Honolulu Museum of Art, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.
