All but 3 of Jacoulet's 166 prints were figure portraits. He selected unusual subjects from the South Sea Islands (Marianas, Carolines, Celebes, Fiji, Yap, Marshall Islands), Korea, Manchuria, and Japan (Hokkaidô, Izu, Kobe, Sawara). Many of his figures were positioned in the traditional three-quarters profile of ukiyo-e convention, but others faced the viewer directly, a confrontational approach that could be disconcerting. He portrayed not only the beautiful but also the infirm and elderly. The common people from fast-disappearing cultures were of special interest to Jacoulet. The artist and woodblock engraver Kazuo Yamagishi (who engraved Jacoulet's rare and most sought-after print, 'Une Parisienne', in 1934) said that Jacoulet's style was so expressive that the character of the Japanese peasants in his portraits could be understood in a single glance.

Jacoulet sold his prints by subscription, thus ensuring a regular supply of income.

Jacoulet numbered his editions in an eccentric manner, often not completing one or more editions and starting the next with numbers not used up in the first, so it is quite difficult to be certain just how many impressions were made of a given design.