Paul Gauguin

Ambroise Vollard, Paris
Quatre Chemins-Editart, Paris
Acquired from the above in 1954

New York, Wildenstein & Co., Gauguin: Loan Exhibition for the Benefit of the Citizens' Committee for Children of New York City, Inc., 1956, no. 63
Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago & New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gauguin: Paintings, Drawings, Prints, Sculpture, 1959, no. 84, illustrated in the catalogue
Martigny, Switzerland, Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Gauguin, 1998, no. 72, illustrated in color in the catalogue
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gauguin in New York Collections: The Lure of the Exotic, 2002, no. 50, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Bernard Dorival, Carnet de Tahiti: Paul Gauguin, Paris, 1954, illustrated p. 101
John Rewald, Gauguin Drawings, New York, 1958, illustrated pl. 33
Ronald Pickvance, The Drawings of Gauguin, New York, 1970, illustrated pl. 57
John Rewald, Post-Impressionism from Van Gogh to Gauguin, New York, 1978, illustrated p. 493

This work is in very good condition. Executed on cream colored paper which has been hinged to a window mat mount at two places on the top edge of the verso. The left edge is deckled and four pindot losses remain from where the sheet was bound in a notebook. Bearing the numbers 101 (upper right on recto) and 201 (lower right on recto). The sheet is otherwise a little dirty and time darkened and the ink is slightly faded.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Disillusioned with the artificiality of bourgeois life in France and nearly destitute, Gauguin set sail for Tahiti in April of 1891, hoping that exile in the tropics would bring about a reversal of his fortunes and recognition of his genius. After acquiring a hut in the rural village of Mataiea, he settled in among the natives, studying their faces and customary postures as well as the lush, mysterious splendor of his new surroundings. During his first period in Tahiti, which lasted until 1893, Gauguin executed a group of paintings inspired by the paradisiacal beauty of the landscape and of the people inhabiting it, creating a fabled body of work which has in large part defined our image of the artist.

The present work, as well as three other works from the Lewyt Collection, Tête de femme, Taoa and Tetua, comes from a sketchbook that Gauguin kept during his first trip to Tahiti. This sketchbook, Carnet de Tahiti, “was a small volume of 130 leaves measuring 17 x 11 cm. of which twenty-nine were blank and the others covered with innumerable sketches in black and white or heightened with watercolours; they date from Gauguin’s first stay in Tahiti and reveal the most intimate and spontaneous aspect of his activity as a draughtsman” (Jean Leymarie, Gauguin: Watercolors, Pastels, Drawings, New York, 1989, p. 48). It has been suggested that the present work and Taoa were studies for Le Repas, a large oil painting now in the collection of the Musée d’Orsay (see fig. 1).

When Gauguin first arrived in Tahiti in 1891 he made numerous sketches: “It seems that many of Gauguin’s sketches…were executed during the first months, while his impressions were still new and before he dared use color. These studies constitute indeed a 'documentation' of a peculiar kind. They show helter-skelter landscapes with lush vegetation, natives in various characteristic attitudes, squatting women, mothers nursing their babies, numerous heads of children, images of idols, tracings of ornamental designs...” (John Rewald, Gauguin Drawings, New York, 1958, p. 15). Fare and other drawings from Carnet de Tahiti can be seen as some of Gauguin first works and interpretation of the new world which surrounded him in Tahiti.