In the context of Bust portrait of Actor Kataoka Ichizō I, analyze the Date of the Print details.
Just as the ROM and MFA Boston disagree on the print's artist, the museums assign different dates to the piece. While the ROM believes it to belong to the period 1849-1862, MFA Boston dates it earlier and more precisely at 1839.
Assuming it to be the work of Sadamasu II, it would have to have been produced during that artist's brief window of activity, which is to say 1849-1850.
In the event that Sadamasu I is the artist, the date can be narrowed based on the following: The print belongs to Sadamasu's mature period, but prior to 1848's official name change to Kunimasu
Actor Arashi Tokusaburō III appeared under that name from the fall or winter of 1830 to the 10th lunar month of 1834, then again from the 6th lunar month of 1837 to the 10th lunar month of 1843
Enactment of the Tenpō Reforms from 1841 to 1843 resulted in a hiatus in yakusha-e production during the early 1840s
Inscriptions of actor and role names disappeared from covert yakusha-e under the Tenpō Reforms and did not reappear until around 1855
Surviving records of Edo period kabuki performances show that Sekitori Senryō Nobori was performed at Osaka's Ōnishi [大西] theatre in the eighth lunar month of the year Tenpō 10, i.e. 1839The above would seem to indicate that the print, if the work of Sadamasu I, belongs to the period 1837-1843, with 1839—as the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston claims—being a likely date.
Sadamasu Edo Tenpō Reforms kabuki Osaka