Gauguin departed for his second trip to Tahiti in June 1895 leaving behind in Paris eight of the ten woodblocks for his series NOA NOA. The artist never returned to France, and the wood blocks were subsequently dispersed. They were then reassembled in the early 20th century by Eugène Druet, who had a small number of posthumous impressions printed by Tony and Jacques Beltrand. In 1918, the eight blocks were sold to Pola Gauguin, the artist's youngest son, who printed and published his own edition of one hundred in black in the same year. This unrecorded impression in ochre is without the cracks to the block visible in Pola's edition, indicating that it was printed earlier, most likely for Druet by the Beltrands. A very similar impression in ochre of L'Univers est créé (K. 18), formerly from the collections of Dr. O. Mascha (Lugt 1904), and Dr. H. Stinnes (L. 1376a), was sold at Sotheby's, London, 30 June - 1 July 1998, lot 410.