Eitaku was born 22 April 1843, a third son of Miura Kichisaburo. At the age of 12 or 13 he became an apprentice under the Kanô school painter Kanô Eishin. Few years later he started to work for Ii Naosuke of Ii clan in Hikone as an official painter and was given a samurai status. Ii Naosuke was assassinated in 1860, after that Eitaku started travel through the country, and then settled in Tokyô.
After he left the Kanô school to produce ukiyo-e, it is said that the ukiyo-e painter Kawanabe Kyôsai took care of him. He studied different styles of painting, both Ming and Western; he studied ukiyo-e with Yoshitoshi and started to produce colourful prints after c. 1870. He also worked as an illustrator for the Yokohama mainichi shimbun newspaper, and created illustration for books.
Eitaku's work long suffered the same low critical esteem in Japan as that of his contemporary, late-era ukiyo-e artists and it was valued more highly in the West.
