Utagawa Toyonobu (歌川豊宣), 1859–1886

Shinsen Taikōki (新撰太閤記) - Newly Selected Records of Taikō, also Newly Biography of Taikō

Utagawa Toyonobu was born in the 11th month of 1859 and died August 10, 1886. He was the eldest son of Utagawa Kunihisa II, who was married to a daughter Kunisada’s I; his younger brother was Utagawa Kunimine (see the entry on "ukiyo-e-shi sōran" (浮世絵師総覧), "Complete Bibliography of ukiyo-e Artists" (Japanese),  http://www.ne.jp/asahi/kato/yoshio/aiueo-zenesi/to-zenesi/toyonobu-koutyou.html). On some prints he gives his civil name with Utagawa Kintarō (歌川金太郎). As good as nothing is known about his life. Mostly he worked as an illustrator of contemporary woodblock printed books (ehon). In addition, there are some color woodblock prints, mostly musha-e triptychs, known and his print series "Shinsen Taikōki", designed as diptychs, which is considered his main work.

The woodblock print series "Shinsen Taikōki" illustrates significant events in the life of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a Japanese military commander and politician who has contributed significantly to the unification of modern Japan after the ongoing Sengoku civil wars. In addition to Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu he is considered in Japan as one of the three "great unifiers".

Shown are scenes from the life of Hideyoshi from his early childhood to the height of his power in the early 1590s, when he resigned as kanpaku and adopted the title taikō. His last years, the campaigns against Korea and his death are not shown.

Of the currently known prints (as of 09/2026) 45 are designed as ōban diptychs. Four scenes are hexaptychs and two are designed as tetraptychs.

One of the diptych dates from 1885, three date from 1884, two have forgotten the date, one print has only the "10" printed for the year, and the one-digit number of the date was obviously forgotten when cutting the printing plate; all others are from different months of the year 1883.

On print no. 39 Kobayashi  Kiyochika signed as a second artist. His signature on this print reads "Gekirō Kiyochika ho", obviously meaning that he assisted in designing the waves of the stormy sea.

The to the series belonging mokuroku (table of contents) has no date; thus it remains unclear whether it was made before, during or only after the completion of the prints. It describes a total of 50 episodes from the life of Hideyoshi in two rows. The two rows themselves are each divided into a descriptive image title and a short explanatory/summary text above. The descriptive captions are not repeated in the text cartouches of the prints themselves; the assignment of the prints to the order given in the table of contents results from the respective text cartridges and the scenes shown.

In total 51 stations from Hideyoshi's life and his companions are shown; one station is not included in the table of contents. However, this can be chronolocially arranged in the image sequence due to the scene shown (see no. 31 a).

The series was published by 11 publishers: Morimoto Junzaburō, Yamamotoya Heikichi (here under the names Yamato Heikichi and Matsuki Heikichi), Arai Kizaburō, Takekawa Seikichi, Sasaki Toyokichi, Hayashi Kichizō, Kobayashi Tetsujirō, Fukuda Kumajirō, Tsunajima Kamekichi, Ueki Rinnosuke and Hara Taneaki.

The text cartouches of the prints contain three sections: on the right, the series title, in the middle a narrative text on the scene shown, and on the left, a motto relating to the scene depicted. These mottos are written in calligraphy and signed with a personal seal (see note).

Some representations of Toyonubo may have been borrowed from other Edo-era artists. See, for example, Utagawa Sadahide's depictions of "yūshin eimei hyaku yūden" written by Chikazawa Kōzan in 1863 (勇臣英名百雄伝 - Courageous Retainers - Stories of 100 Heroes), compare no. 37 right and no. 33, or a triptych by Utamaro entitled Taikō gosai Rakutō yūkan no zu (太閤五妻洛東遊観之図 - The Taikō and His Five Wives on an Excursion to the East of Kyōto) for no. 50.

In his pictorial design, Toyonobu unites traditional Japanese elements with Western stylistic features. In particular, the use of perspective and the manner in which people and animals are portrayed appear modern on prints for their time in Japan, and the powerful dynamics of many of the series' portrayals are unique and impressive in contemporary Japanese printmaking.

The prints are elaborately made. For cutting the printing plates, the best woodcutters of their time were commissioned, the colors are carefully applied and there are different printing techniques such as varnish application, polishing, blind printing and mica printing.

Since many of the prints are in very good color quality, they were obviously kept in albums and only recently separated from these and circulated as a scattered diptych. Whether the contemporary publishers of the series have already tackled a joint book edition of the prints, is not known.
 

Of the total of 51 known designs (without the mokuroku), 25 have a “kiwame” note („極“ for “approval”) in slightly different forms in a koro-shaped seal. There is no evidence in the literature about the use of such a censorship seal after the Tenpō reforms; it is also unclear why only part of the prints bear this seal.

Many thanks to Mariko Saiko and Wolfgang Hoehn for transcription and translation of some texts!

Please send comments, improvements and questions to horstgraebner@kunisada.de