This originates in a satirical cartoon from about 1928.
While the man in the cartoon is unnamed, he's apparently modeled after Tadasaburo Yamamoto, a businessman from humble roots who grew very successful in the late 19th/early 20th century. He was known for flaunting his enormous wealth.
One night, Yamamoto was leaving after an extravagant meal at a restaurant in Hakodate, when he saw a geisha searching around in the foyer for her shoes, having trouble because of the darkness. He therefore pulled out a ¥100 bill (now worth about ¥1 million, allowing for inflation) and lit it to brighten the area. The incident became famous as an anecdote of nouveau riche behavior.
Years later, an artist named Kunibo Wada heard of the incident and drew a satirical cartoon depicting the situation, entitled "The Age of Nouveau Riche Splendor". (It can be seen on the Wikipedia page linked above.) The cartoon appears in current Japanese history textbooks and so has some slight fame among the public. It has gained a similar level of popularity recently as a motif for ASCII art and gag images.
TL;DR: He's based on historical figure Tadasaburo Yamamoto, but isn't actually him, so...don't know about how to tag it.
That's really interesting, Moonspeaker! Tadasaburo is actually one of the tags on the pixiv version of the picture, though that's not common. どうだ明るくなったろう/Douda akaruku nattarou, the character's line from the cartoon, seems to be used often when referencing the satirical piece. Maybe we could tag it like that?
I just noticed that post #1074340 is tagged with that as well...
There was a similar incident in Vietnam back in about the same time as the incident you talked about too. But here it's a ring and the man just burn one after another, this time, one 100$ bill after another without saying a word to find the ring for his lover. And in the end they did find it though.
