Which ukiyo-e artist was arrested in 1804 for depicting the shogun's concubines?

Kitagawa Utamaro was arrested in 1804 for depicting Toyotomi Hideyoshi with his wife and concubines.

The incident grew out of a series of colour prints based on Ehon Taikōki, an illustrated history of the sixteenth-century military ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Although the subject was historical, authorities under the Tokugawa shogunate viewed such depictions as politically dangerous, especially because images of Hideyoshi’s household could be interpreted as indirect commentary on the contemporary regime.

Utamaro’s print is often identified by the title Hideyoshi and His Five Wives Viewing the Cherry Blossoms at Higashiyama. It showed Hideyoshi at a flower-viewing gathering surrounded by his wife and concubines. The British Museum records that Utamaro was sentenced to be handcuffed for designing colour prints connected with the prohibited material.

A common mix-up is the claim that Utamaro portrayed the shogun’s own concubines. He depicted Hideyoshi’s sixteenth-century household; the perceived offence was that the historical scene could reflect on the ruling Tokugawa authorities. Utamaro was reportedly manacled for fifty days, and he died in 1806, only two years after the arrest.