Regimental commander of the 1st Imperial guards Artillery - Kumamoto Masaji

This print belongs to Kiyochika's series of military portraits produced during or following the First Sino-Japanese War, depicting senior officers of the Imperial Japanese Army in formal or field regalia. Kumamoto Masaji, as regimental commander of the 1st Imperial Guards Artillery, would be shown in the Western-style military uniform adopted by the Meiji army — peaked cap, double-breasted jacket with rank insignia, and likely sword — rendered in the frontal or three-quarter portrait format conventional in Meiji military prints. Kiyochika's officer portraits combine the Western-influenced realism of facial likeness with the compositional conventions of the martial heroic print genre, often placing the subject against a battlefield or encampment background that contextualizes rank and action. The oban vertical format typical of such prints allows a full-length or half-length figure, with regiment and name cartouches providing identification within the established visual vocabulary of Meiji-era military nishiki-e.