In 1907, the Mitsukoshi department store established its art section, called "shin bijutsu bu" (New Art Section), to display and sell the art of prominent contemporary artists in both its Osaka and Tokyo branches, in September and December, respectively. The establishment of the official annual salon Monbush? Bijutsu Tenrankai (Ministry of Education Art Exhibition, abbreviated as Bunten) in that same year was likely the most immediate and significant impetus for department stores to decide to deal in the art trade. The stores refined their image as institutions of high culture by dealing in the works of Bunten artists. Department store art sections displayed works of art in their standing showrooms and frequently held special exhibitions of art for sale and, for customers in remote areas, they also offered mail-order sales of art. The stores placed an emphasis on providing expanded opportunities for all Japanese to collect and appreciate "high art," which had previously been monopolized by the educated male elite. Despite open access to their art sections, however, the department stores primarily targeted customers from the rising urban middle class, who purchased art for the interior decoration of their new homes. After education and profession, cultural sophistication played a significant role in the negotiation of an individual’s social position in Japan during the transitional period between the dismantling of the feudal status system and the establishment of a modern industrial class society. Taste for art acted not only as a conspicuous marker of social status but also as an active determinant of it in the fluid conditions of modern Japan. By putting the arts back in private interior spaces that immediately communicated the occupant’s social status, department store art sections created a new dynamic of social distinction within the nominally equal experience of the arts, while official art exhibitions, held in public abstract gallery spaces, propagated the idea that broad distribution of art would help to realize the democratic ideals of the nation, advancing the people’s taste and enlightenment. This article examines how the new middle class achieved mastery of the tasteful consumption of art crucial to the generation of social distinction and class identity through the art sections of department stores, and how department stores in turn capitalized on the cultural aspirations of their upwardly mobile customers.