# Utagawa Yoshitora artist context and auction value notes

Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/utagawa-yoshitora/
Profile generated: 2026-08-24T19:02:16.499Z
Quality: medium confidence, adequate sources

## Artist identity

- Nationality: Japanese
- Movements: Ukiyo-e, Utagawa school
- Common media: Japanese color woodblock prints, Book and newspaper illustration, Painting

## About Utagawa Yoshitora

Utagawa Yoshitora was a Japanese designer of ukiyo-e woodblock prints, an illustrator, and a painter active in Edo from approximately 1850 to 1880. He is associated with the Utagawa school and is described as a pupil of Utagawa Kuniyoshi. Yoshitora worked during the late Edo and early Meiji context, when Japanese print culture increasingly represented encounters with foreign people and places. His output includes warrior subjects, kabuki actors, beautiful women, and scenes of foreigners often classified as Yokohama-e. He also supplied illustrations for books and newspapers. Collectors may encounter his name in authority records under Romanized and Japanese forms, including Utagawa Yoshitora and 歌川芳虎. Although Wikidata reports the life years 1836–1880, another collected biographical source states that his precise birth and death dates are unknown; those dates therefore remain unresolved here. His varied subjects and documented signature forms make careful identification important when connecting an impression or publication to the artist.

## Common works and media

Works encountered under Yoshitora's name commonly include Japanese color woodblock prints depicting warriors, kabuki actors, beautiful women, foreigners, and imagined foreign scenes. Yokohama-e subjects form an important part of his documented output. Collectors may also encounter illustrated books, newspaper illustrations, and paintings, although the available source pack is strongest for his printmaking and illustration activity. Authority data also associates him with titles including Gaikoku jinbutsu zukushi and Giretsu hyakushu.

## Market and appraisal context

Auction and appraisal research for Yoshitora should begin by identifying the object type: a woodblock print, painting, illustrated book, or other printed illustration. Subject matter can help narrow comparisons because his documented themes include warriors, kabuki actors, beautiful women, and foreign people or places. Signature form and attribution also merit close examination, as several Yoshitora signatures are documented. When suitable public records are available, comparisons should consider closely related work types and subjects together with sale dates and realized prices. The collected source pack confirms an Appraisily auction-record presence but does not include detailed major-auction-house catalogue evidence, so it cannot support a general price forecast or market-trend claim.

## Appraisily data basis

Appraisily artist pages combine public artist-identity research with auction records and, when available, auction-house context, sale dates, realized prices, and comparable lots. Identity conflicts and evidence gaps are retained rather than converted into unsupported conclusions.

## Sources

- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3075041
- Getty Vocabulary Program: https://vocab.getty.edu/page/ulan/500342437
- VIAF: https://viaf.org/viaf/294494324/
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utagawa_Yoshitora
- Wikipedia: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utagawa_Yoshitora
- Appraisily: https://appraisily.com/artist/utagawa-yoshitora/