October; Pickles Market

October — Pickles Market depicts the autumn commerce in tsukemono — the vast variety of Japanese preserved vegetables that were both a dietary staple and a culinary art form. The pickles market, where vendors displayed great crocks and tubs of vegetables at various stages of fermentation and preservation, was one of the more pungent and colorful events in the autumn commercial calendar. Mori's rendering would have captured both the visual abundance of the display — the varied colors of different pickled vegetables — and the social atmosphere of the market, where vendors and customers negotiated the qualities of a product whose excellence was a matter of considerable expertise.