Not long after 1800 the pressure of work brought upon him by his great popularity, together with the effects of a none too well spent life in the Yoshiwara, combined to strain his powers unduly. His work no longer kept its earlier freshness; his exaggerations became coarser; his invention grew less fertile. He began to rely on the assistance of his pupils, as we know from his "Book of the Green Houses" (1804), in which several collaborated with him. Doubtless many an Utamaro print of this time is their work.
In the year 1804 came the final catastrophe. Consequent upon the publication of the well-known triptych representing the ancient Shogun Hideyoshi entertaining his five concubines in the eastern quarter of the capital, the ruling Shogun Iyenari took umbrage at the salacious disrespect to his ancestor and the delicately implied allusion to himself, and Utamaro was thrown into prison for his offence. There he remained, it is said, for a year; when he emerged, it was with impaired health and a broken spirit.
UTAMARO: A YOUTHFUL PRINCE AND LADIES.
Left-hand sheet of a triptych. Size 15 × 10. Signed Utamaro, hitsu.
Plate 41.
His productions after this time were not comparable with his earlier work. In the year 1806 he died, and with him died the great days of the Japanese print.
In this rapid survey it has been impossible to do justice to the many-sided powers of this great designer. His beautiful landscapes, his fine animal pictures, the tender and whimsical mother-and-child and domestic scenes he produced, have all had to be ignored in favour of his central achievements—his unparalleled designs of the courtesan of the Yoshiwara in her weary glory. Certainly no more varied and distinguished talent than his illumines the roll of Ukioye artists. Beside his perpetually fresh invention even the great Kiyonaga seems stereotyped and academic.
To-day the poorer examples of Utamaro's work are still readily procurable. His greatest works are rare. Certain of his triptychs, his silver half-length portraits, and his large heads on mica backgrounds, are very uncommon. But with patience and judgment the collector may still obtain now and then a fine specimen of Utamaro's work.