This piece is named after Mineko Iwasaki, who at the peak of her career in the 1970s, was probably the most famous and highest-earning geisha in Japan.

Chosen as heir to the Iwasaki geisha house in Gion, she was legally adopted at age 4 by the geisha house "mother" in the 1950s. Iwasaki endured the rigours of geisha training to rise to the top of her profession; by the time she retired at 29, she had entertained some of the most famous people in the world, including Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles, and former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger.

Mineko Iwasaki lives in retirement in Kyoto with her artist husband. Her 2002 book, Geisha, a Life, has been translated into 23 languages and acclaimed as the first authentic account by a former geisha of life in the "flower and willow" world of Gion.