La Statuette Thang. Mandchoukuo

 

Paul Jacoulet

  1896 - 1960 (biography)

1956  

color woodcut with silver, gold, and pearl metallics and mica dust 

15 1/2 x 11 11/16" image 

pencil signed within image in mid left image 

Miles lists fewer than 50 impressions 

printed title in lower right margin; chops of the Maeda, carver, and Honda, printer, in lower right margin; Peony seal beneath signature 

Miles 144, illustrated page 81 

antique-white Japanese wove with watermark 

published 

artist 

ROSA102 

SOLD

According to Richard Miles, this is the last and rarest of the Manchurian prints. The implied irony of the sumptuously gowned aristocratic lady gazing reverently at a most ordinary little statue was not lost on the artist. His placement of the figure slightly to the right leaves a space where, before the war, a gorgeous screen would have been. Jacoulet's genius for composition punches a circle with a misty landscape that further emphasizes the ordinariness of the little figure. The complexion of the lady is enhanced with powdered pearl and small touches of a very fugitive pink. All of the prints from the late fifties were on a paper that seems not to have resisted light and time as well as before. Mint condition as a result is very rare.