so prominent amongst the Anglo-Japanese style and from the bright colour schemes seen in contemporary woodblock prints. Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo also began designing furniture inspired by Ikebana, as was noted further by many periodicals in the time on the subject of Japanese flower arrangement. In 1887, Charles Holmes founder of The Studio Magazine, travels to Japan with Arthur Liberty. In the same year, Mortimer Menpes also presents his first Japanese inspired exhibition in London; rousing the ire of Whistler. Alfred East is commissioned by the Fine Art Society to paint in Japan for 6 months in 1888, and Frank Morley Fletcher becomes introduced to Japanese woodcuts, helping through the next 22 years to teach about them in London and Reading, Yorkshire. In 1889 Oscar Wilde noted on The Decay of Lying how "In fact the whole of Japan is pure invention. ... The Japanese people are ... simply a mode of style, an exquisite fancy of art." Also see Whistler's paintings and designs (principally in The Peacock Room and his nocturnes series). Arthur Morrison begins his 'collecting' of Japanese paintings (culminating in his 1911 publication) and woodblock prints, buying wares in Wapping and Limehouse and bought through his friend Harold George Parlett (1869–1945), a British Japanese diplomat and writer on Buddhism; this eventually became the Arthur Morrison collection in the British Museum. 1890–1899: Class Consciousness During the 1890s, the Anglo-Japanese was at the height of its popularity, with the middle classes in Victorian Britain also began to begin collecting and buying Japanese imports and Anglo-Japanese style designs and pieces. In 1890 the Bowes Museum of Japanese Art Work in Liverpool opening; in The Magazine of Art under Marion Harry Spielmann a number of articles were also published regarding Japanese art in the decade. Two years prior, the painter Mortimer Menpes had travelled to Japan. Whilst there, Menpes developed a fascination with the architectural and decorative arts and upon return to London in 1889, had his home 'decorated in the Japanese style' by the architect Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo at 25 Cadogan Gardens, London by 1890. Menpes issued an Osaka-based Japanese company to furnish his home with stained curved wood panelling, traditionally seen in Shiro interiors or cornicing with gold detailing; based on Japanese lacquer, installed Kunmiko Ramma (decorative latticed ventilation screens), double-sided Anglo-Japanese window frames and employed typical minimal decoration. Furniture was also imported from Europe and Japan, with European chairs,