Artist – KOBAYASHI Eitaku (Eitaki) (小林永濯, こばやし えいたく) was a former painter and successive ukiyo-e artist and illustrator frome late Edo to Meiji era. In 1855 at the age of 13, he had been given to KANO Eitoku of the KANO Nakahashi family to study painting in the KANO style, and was given the name Eitoku Tokunobu. At the age of 18, he had been adopted to ISHII Eiko, a painter of the Ii Clan in the Hikone Domain in Omi Province, nowadays Shiga Prefecture. He was given Samurai status as a court painter by LI Naosuke, Lord of Hakoner. He left Hikone after the assasination of his lord, giving up his status as samurai and was traveling Japan. He perfected his studies with KANO Nagasu, a painter from the Himeji domain, thus KOBAYASHI took the name of his master Nagasu (永洲). Brush painting at those days was some kind of noble art, that was carried out on an official basis for government and related circles. In 1864 the first year of the Genji era, KOBAYASHI finaly set up a painting studio in Nihonbashi-dori-ch.

The 1860ies became a time of political and social unrest. KOBAYASHI was educated on classical Kanō school painting. but was as well influenced by classical Chinese Ming style, Nanga or Nanshūga (南宗画, a less academic and stern Chinese style of painting; 'Southern Style'), and Western-style painting, amalgamating this into his own personal kind of style, thus also incorporating the Western realism, such as shadow and perspective.
With the changing times and opening up to new ideas, colours, new pigments, techniques, etc.,as well as the emerging print product businesses, painters of his time discussed the upcoming and growing economic and artistic possibilities. KOBAYASHI was befriended with Kawanabe Kyosai and Yoshitoshi Tsukioka and many other artists of his time. Classical Kano school painters had been prohibited from involving the Ukiyo-e business, thus laying economic stress on those kind of artists. Thus after the Meiji restoration, KOBAYASHI also had been engaged in ukiyo-e, working in many kinds of businesses, including collaborating with the new media of his time (books, newspapers).

He became an illustrator for renowned newpapers, was in demand for multiple book projects and mangas, even illustrated the emerging numbers of translated books from foreign resources (c.p. Kanagaki Robun's biography of Ulysses S. Grant in 1878), "Yaso Ichidai Bendeki" in 1874, picture books such as "All Things Model Book", several childrens books, some as 'crepe paper books' or chirimen-bon, even schoolbooks, alike the 1877 published "Introduction to Elementary School Professor Illustrated" ("小学入門教授図解"), that explained the teaching method of the newly introduced school system in the 10th year of the Meiji era. Some books even had been translated into foreign languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Swedish). He was an illustrator and producer of own manga editions, etc.. In 1876 KOBAYASHI held a calligraphy and painting session at Nakamuraro in Ryogoku. It was stated that "Ukiyo-e was lively only at the group of the greatest teachers in Tokyo." In addition, the works of Yuichi Takahashi , Matsusaburo Yokoyama , Morizumi Isana , Charles Wirgman and others were also exhibited at this calligraphy exhibition, thus indicating his wide interaction with even foreign Western artists. His manga books were widely recognized, and he was even a forerunner of political cartons.

Nevertheless, KOBAYASHI never ceased to work as a classical painter, receiving attention and even prizes, for instance at the 1877 first round of the National Industrial Exposition, or in 1885 at the 'Kan artists' Association' in the first Annual Meeting. In 1887, he and Yoshitoshi Tsukioka drew historical paintings on the lanterns at the all widely recognized 'Shin-Yoshihara Lantern Association' exhibition.

Alike most of many ukiyo-e artists, KOBAYASHI also created Shunga (春画), erotic art. One of his most often cited paintings is the 1870 cycle of nine paintings, showing the 'Decomposition of a Female Corpse', a macabre sequence of the physical disintegration of a body of a courtesan. Apart from the Western kind of lurid view, the topic of the decay of life and the transience of eros (“Kusō-zu”, 九想図, lit. "in nine stages to soil") must, however, be interpreted as a meditative Buddhist exercise on the temporary nature of being.

Personal life - He was born in Edo on April 22nd in 1843 as MIURA-YA Shujiro (or Hidejirō, as different reading)  (三浦屋 秀次郎) . His father MIURA-YA Yoshisaburo was a fishmonger in the Shiba Fish Market of Nihonbashi area of Edo. Shujiro was his third son. The young Shujiro was considered a frail and sickly child, had an aversion to fish and was supposed to take up a more artistic livelihood. At the age of 13, he started his artistic education and course of life.Besides his adoption of his pupil Kobayashi Eiko, there is sparse information about his personal life.

KOBAYASHI Eitaku died of chronic lung disease on May 27th in 1890 at a residence in Koumemura village in Mukojima town at the age of 48. His graveyard is at the Shoboji Temple in Matsubara, Setagaya-ku. He is interred under the posthumous name '(Dagoin) Tokunobu Hidei Nagai'.

Aliases -  KOBAYASHI Eitaku used several "Go" (ごう / 号) aliases or artist's names throughout his life. Besides his birth name MIURA-YA Shujiro (三浦屋 秀次郎), and otherwise given name Kobayashi Tokusen (小林 徳宣), he used Sensai (鮮斎), Isensai (一鮮斎), Yume-gyo/Mugyo (夢魚), Kadō (霞堂), Baikadō (梅花堂), and Nagasu (Naga shū, 永洲).