A Back Canal, Osaka
Mortimer Menpes
1901
Watercolour
Source: Japan, A Record in Colour, facing p. 166
Menpes and the wise little merchant "Inchie" scoured Oasaka as well as Tokyo in search of materials for the interior design of Menpes's house in London. In Osaka, they searched for a piece of perfect, well-seasoned wood for a projected "all-important wood-carving, the eye of the peacock" (186), visiting many timber-yards there. On this occasion Menpes would have had another taste of the city's waterways, since paintings of them appear again in this later chapter on "Workers." [Commentary continues below.]