When the demand for Western-style paintings was at its lowest, he did not ask politicians nor business persons to let him draw their portraits; he even refused to be one of the three finalists in a selection by the Japanese Red Cross Society of a painter to draw a portrait of Empress Dowager Shoken (500 yen).
洋画の需要が最も少なかった時代、政財界人につてを求めて肖像画をかかせてもらったりすることがなく、むしろ日本赤十字社歴史により昭憲皇太后の肖像画を描く最終候補者3人の1人に選ばれながら辞退した（金500円）。