Katsura Eiju is known through two designated works: a matched set of fittings with a carp design, designated in 1977, and a of eight fine horses, designated in 2005. The published sources give his background in the same terms on both occasions. He was a native of Kurume in Chikugo Province, studied under Yokoya Eisei and later became a pupil of the second-generation Soko (宗興); he was retained as a craftsman by the Arima family, lords of the Kurume domain, worked from the Meiwa and An'ei eras through Tenmei and Kansei, and used the art name Shoyoshi (逍遥子).
His manner, as the published sources describe it, follows the Yokoya tradition: worked in with polychrome . His subjects include shishi, dragons and tigers, and he also studied the work of Yokoya Somin closely enough to make faithful copies of it.
The carp set of and , with signed in a split Katsura Eiju, is such a copy. The design of carp swimming through waves is known among Somin's works, executed in , and Eiju's set reproduces that model in with , and . The published sources judge it frankly: 「この作は宗珉の作に及ばないまでも、彼の力作の一つである」 (although it does not reach the level of Somin's work, it is one of his forceful efforts).
The of 2005 is a round plate with a gold and a , signed Eiju with . Five horses run on the and three on the , at play and at rest across an open plain, coloured in gold, silver, and . The carving is described as free and expansive in the Yokoya manner, and of the colouring the published sources write 「色絵の技法も堅実であり、同工の技術の高さを如実に物語っている」 (the technique is also steady, and it shows plainly the high level of this maker's skill).