Invasion of Shikoku, from the series Newly Selected Records of the Taikō Hideyoshi (Shinsen Taikōki)

This 1883 musha-e by Utagawa Toyonobu, held by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (accession sc186223, object 254991), depicts the invasion of Shikoku, a major episode in Hideyoshi's 1585 campaign that subdued the Chōsokabe clan and brought the island under Toyotomi control as a key step in the unification of Japan. The Shikoku campaign was one of Hideyoshi's most ambitious military operations and a foundational episode in his consolidation of power following Oda Nobunaga's death at Honnō-ji three years earlier. Toyonobu's composition treats the invasion as a panoramic battle scene with cavalry, infantry, and standards arrayed in the dense crowd of figures characteristic of Meiji warrior-print compositions. The bright aniline reds and the carefully drawn armor details place the print firmly within the early-1880s Meiji color register and the Utagawa-school warrior-print tradition that Toyonobu had inherited from his teacher Toyohara Kunichika and from the Kunisada lineage before him. The Shikoku invasion's inclusion in the Shinsen Taikōki reflects the series' goal of providing a comprehensive visual biography of the unifier.