Mori Ippo

Mori Ippô was an Osaka-based painter of the early 19th century.

He was known for his paintings of boatmen culling reeds (mô kari), a pun on the word for "making a profit" (mo-ukari) which made that theme particularly popular in the merchant city of Osaka, though it is hardly seen outside of that city. Mori was so well-known for these paintings that he came to be known by the tongue-in-cheek nickname Môkari Ippô ("making a profit, step-by-step").

References

• Timon Screech, Obtaining Images, University of Hawaii Press (2012), 48.