Fumées de Santal, Manchoukuo – Paul Jacoulet

Artist: Paul Jacoulet (1902–1960)

Title: Fumées de Santal, Mandchoukuo (Sandalwood Smoke, Manchuria)

Date: 1948

Medium: Genuine Japanese color woodblock print with mica and embossing

Format: Dai-ōban yoko-e (large horizontal format)

Paper Size: Approximately 14.25 × 18.5 inches

This original Japanese woodblock print is Paul Jacoulet’s Fumées de Santal, Mandchoukuo (Sandalwood Smoke, Manchuria), published in December 1948. The print was produced in a limited edition, with numbered impressions documented on the verso; 81/250. 

Fumées de Santal depicts an elegantly dressed Manchurian woman reclining languidly across a stone balustrade as smoke rises from an elaborate incense burner below. Her richly patterned robe dominates the composition, contrasting with the cool gray background and pale architectural forms surrounding her. Jacoulet uses an unusually restrained palette while lavishing attention on the woman's clothing, jewelry, and elaborate floral headdress. The drifting sandalwood smoke and her half-closed eyes give the scene a dreamy, almost suspended quality.

The print is particularly notable for its sophisticated printing techniques. Jacoulet used embossing (karazuri or gaufrage) extensively in the woman's robe and the sandalwood smoke, along with mica in the gray background and metallic accents in her clothing and ornaments. These subtle effects are much easier to appreciate in person than in a photograph and are characteristic of the elaborate craftsmanship found in Jacoulet's finest prints.

Inscriptions & Marks:

• Title: Fumées de Santal, Mandchoukuo — “Sandalwood Smoke, Manchuria”
• Artist: Paul Jacoulet
• Date: December 1948
• Signature: “Paul Jacoulet” within the image at lower right
• Artist seal: Red mitsu-tomoe seal beneath the signature
• Watermark: Paul Jacoulet watermark visible in the paper
• Carver: Kentarō Maeda
• Printer: Tetsunosuke Honda
• Edition: 81/250
  

Condition: Excellent. Full margins with light overall toning consistent with age. Colors remain strong and well balanced, with the delicate gray background, metallic details, and embossed elements retaining good definition. Puncture holes in top corners. Deckled edges remain visible. 

About the Artist: Paul Jacoulet (1902–1960) was a French-born artist who spent most of his life in Japan and became one of the most distinctive figures in twentieth-century Japanese woodblock printmaking. Working with highly skilled Japanese carvers and printers, Jacoulet produced technically elaborate prints characterized by precise linework, unusual pigments, mica, metallics, and extensive embossing. His subjects frequently came from Japan, Korea, China, Micronesia, and other parts of East Asia and the Pacific. His combination of traditional Japanese printmaking techniques with his highly individual style makes his work immediately recognizable, and his prints are now held in major museum collections internationally.

About the Print: Fumées de Santal is one of Jacoulet's best-known horizontal compositions and a particularly strong example of his postwar work. Published on December 25, 1948, the design combines a carefully posed figure with some of the elaborate printing techniques for which Jacoulet became famous. The woman's richly embossed robe, shimmering mica, metallic ornamentation, and subtly raised sandalwood smoke turn what initially appears to be a relatively restrained composition into a technically complex print. The mitsu-tomoe seal seen beneath Jacoulet's signature is also unusual: this is documented as the only Jacoulet design on which he used this particular seal.