The beginner should be warned that there were, in all, at least five men who at various times bore the name Toyokuni. No one of the successors of the first Toyokuni ever produced work comparable with the finest work of Toyokuni I; but it is a matter of great difficulty, not yet by any means wholly clear, to distinguish between the late inferior work of Toyokuni I and the work of several of the succeeding Toyokunis. One simple indication may be of service to the inexperienced collector: If the Toyokuni signature is in a red oval or cartouch, it is not by the first master. This statement cannot, however, be reversed, for the later Toyokunis often signed without the cartouch. TOYOHIRO. _A Group of Ladies._ O careless passer--O look deep! These forms from near the sea of sleep Come hither; on each forehead gleams The phosphorescent spray of dreams. They have sailed in from lonely seas Cloaked in a haze of mysteries; And hither by a lord are led Who snared them, pale himself with dread, Upon the very shores of sleep. O careless passer-by, look deep! Utagawa Toyohiro, sometimes also called Ichiriusai, was born in 1773; he was a brother, fellow-student, and probably pupil of Toyokuni. It is well known that about 1800 these two artists collaborated to some extent. Toyohiro's own chief work--landscapes, book-illustrations not unlike Hokusai's, and figures of women--was done between 1795 and 1820; he died in the year 1828. [Illustration: TOYOHIRO.] Fate has been unkind to him in associating him with a man tremendously more productive and incomparably more popular in his own day than himself. Even to the present time, the reputation of Toyokuni still overshadows that of his brother. But the close student of Toyohiro's work will probably come to the conclusion that this present difference in fame is due less to difference in merit than to the fact that Toyokuni was enormously prolific, while Toyohiro's work was scanty. The contemporaneous popularity may be ascribed to the ability of Toyokuni to shift and veer with every change in the public taste, while Toyohiro was unable or unwilling to move with these fluctuating winds. It is reported that a serious breach occurred between the brothers because of Toyohiro's refusal to produce actor-prints as the popular taste demanded. His work is, however, coming to be recognized as of a quality at least equal to his brother's, and in some respects finer and more truly the expression of a rare sense of beauty. We may conjecture that Toyohiro inherited two things from his first teacher Toyoharu. One was a leaning toward landscape drawing. The other was a certain distinction and shy aloofness that marked the older master.