The World Art News is the first to bring you this breaking story of a newly discovered masterpiece by Paul Gauguin ‘Beautes a Tahiti – Source sur la mer’. Marking a significant moment in art history, Giancarlo Graziani and Salvatore Prato meticulously unravel a narrative that transcends the boundaries of mere artistry. With scholarly rigor, they trace the journey of this previously unseen painting, illuminating its path from obscurity to revelation.
From the vibrant streets of Paris to the tranquil shores of Tahiti, the canvas bears witness to a compelling tale of artistic brilliance and commercial intrigue. As its secrets are methodically revealed, the painting emerges as a testament to Gauguin’s enduring legacy and the timeless allure of discovery in the world of art. The following story is published exactly as provided by the authors, who must be credited with this groundbreaking research.
Paul Gauguin: the Market and the Information Distortions
“Beautes a Tahiti – Source sur la mer”, an inedited painting from “the not yet known Gauguins”
By Giancarlo Graziani and Salvatore Prato
© April 2024
© All rights reserved: the authors are exclusively authorized by the property to publish the information on the inedited painting covered by this article; total or partial reproduction of materials and photos contained in the present article is allowed only and exclusively with full mention of the authors.
The market of modern artworks has always been marked by “information distortions” and “false reality“ that the different groups with particular interests, often speculative, have engendered and continue to engender.
This is the case of Paul Gauguin, one of the main Post-Impressionist artists, the value of whose works has whetted and whets the appetites of many who acts despite the real available information and careless of the productive and commercial reality of the Artist in the years in which he was alive, of the market of his artworks in the years immediately following his death and of what was then partially “catalogued” by those who wanted to claim the right to represent the only knowledge of his artistic production.
Above all, it must be considered that the information distortions also arise from the fact that the information on the commercialization of the works of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists cannot in any way be “totally” known because there were many unknown dealers and gallerists who took steps for the sale of works of these artists and many of these dealers and gallerists disappeared, together with their archives, between the two world wars and after the second world war.
In the information below we will give a representation of what was mentioned above through the presentation for the first time – authorized and approved by the Property – to the public of an unpublished painting with a Tahitian subject by Paul Gauguin, stored in a private collection and never subjected to a public viewing.
In presenting this painting we will deliberately omit to provide information about the current and previous owners and will provide only some information regarding the technical and artistic characteristics of the painting and its artistic, historical and commercial provenance.
The history of the painting “Beautes a Tahiti – Source sur la mer” (“Beauties to Tahiti – Spring on the sea”) begins in 1893 when Gauguin returned to Paris after his first stay in Tahiti and exactly in his studio in Rue Vercingetorix where every thursday he brought together artists of various expressions including also writers such as August Strindberg (1849/1912), who was also famous as a painter.
The painting, signed “P. Gauguin”, in the lower left, is in fact an important and emblematic work of the French painter who presumably made it during his first period in French Polynesia which lasted from April 1891 to June 1893.
The painting was done by Paul Gauguin on “parisienne” canvas (probably already “prepared” with a white background), a type of fabric for painters – among many specific types – in use in France in the period of the late 19th century and early 20th century.
The painting was probably already marketed with the first exhibitions, not very successful, held by Georges and Joseph Durand Ruel and willed by Gauguin to raise funds for his needs and for his return to Polynesia which then took place in July 1895 and from which he will never return to Europe.
The visible inkmark on the reverse “H Gairard (above) – Objects d’Art (in the center) – Paris 54[A]E (below)” (Fig. 1) reports to a merchant and/or manufacturer of canvases located in the Latin Quarter of Paris, that of the painters precisely, where larger or smaller supply stores for artists abounded and whose owners were often friends, and also patrons, of painters: this was the way they provided their supplies.
In this regard, just to remember among others Thasset et Lothe, Alfred Binant. Constant Lepoutre, later portrayed by Amedeo Modigliani, Julien Tanguy – the Perè Tanguy portrayed by Van Gogh – who accepted the works of the Artists in payment, because they had nothing else to pay with (at the death of Tanguy, in 1894, many paintings found in his shop were sold at auction for a few francs, including some signed by Gauguin).
Gauguin, like his colleagues, did not have many means and therefore the canvases traveled rolled up to reduce costs – canvas stretching on a frame had a cost of about 5 francs per painting – also because sometimes the stretching had to be redone when the colors dried: for this reason, some paint retouches were carried out by “others” later, especially if the journey was as long as the one followed by Gauguin’s works from Polynesia to France.
Once completed, paintings were not equipped with a frame, given the high price, and often the frame was made with simple wooden strips sometimes painted in various colors (Gauguin appreciated white for this purpose) and in this way paintings were also displayed at the exhibitions.
Only the most successful art dealers, such as Paul Durand Ruel and his most famous colleagues, and also of course the wealthiest collectors, such as the Russians Sergey Scukin – who had 15 works by Gauguin in the dining room of his Moscow residence in Trubetzkoy Palace – and Ivan Morozov, among others, equipped the paintings with frames in Rococo style, a style flourished in the Kingdom of France under Louis XV °, with carvings and gilding precisely similar to the Beauties in Tahiti’s frame that well fits with the furniture in vogue at the time.
The art dealer Alfred Portier believed that the “golden frames enhanced the very high ranges of colors”, as are the tones used by Gauguin in this painting, and Vincent Van Gogh, speaking about a painting, said: “I repeat to you, it must be framed with something golden … By placing a picture next to a golden shade, you also get a brightness in unsuspected points, at the same time removing that marbled aspect that the picture takes on when it is unfortunately placed on an opaque or black background … a tone golden revives it”.
“Beauties to Tahiti” is therefore preserved to this day with its support and frame which have always accompanied it, in the first case, and by the first owner – “Van den Züe” (probably a Paris collector) -, in the second and which complete its originality and historical / artistic value.
The two labels on the back (Fig. 2 e 3), which appear to be contemporary to the painting, show that it has gone through several commercial and exhibition occasions before coming into the hands of a private collector.
The indication of provenance from the “Collec. Wan den Züe…” in the lower label (Fig. 2) – together with a painting by Berthe Morisot – and the other label “Exhibition of Art Treasures”, in which the painting is indicated with the title and the number “19” (Fig. 3) certify these passages which are coherent with the traced origin.
In particular, the label “Exhibition of Art Treasures” (Fig. 3), placed higher than the other label, is perfectly in line with what is indicated for the exhibition “Manet and the Post-Impressionists1” [[1] Commercial Selling Exhibition] held at the Grafton Galleries in London from November 8th 1910 to January 11, 1911, where Gauguin’s works were placed in the “Large Gallery” together with those of Van Gogh: 42 works by Gauguin were exhibited and of these 31 were not then identified except the 8 published on advertising pages, and these also were rather identified dubitatively and interpreting the titles, not always perfectly matching2 [2Anna Gruetzner Robins, “Manet and the Post-Impressionists”: a checklist of exhibits, in Burlington Magazine, 152, 2010 pp. 782-793]. Many of these works came from private collections and from dealers from Paris.
According to what reported by Augustus John, a famous English painter of that time, towards the end of the exhibition “Manet and the Post-Impressionists”, other works by Gauguin were added and among them one entitled “Two Maori women in a landscape”, a title perfectly adhering to the subject in question.
Some of these works displayed at the Grafton Galleries were then sent to Liverpool for an “Exhibition of Modern and Post -Impressionist Art”, held from March 4th to April 1th, 1911 where was exhibited a painting entitled “Maori Women”, indicated by number “20”: as is evident, the subject and the number are homogeneous and in sequence with what is reported on the label on the back of the painting (Fig. 3).
The word used “Maori” is in fact no longer used to indicate the Polynesian human subjects of Gauguin also because it is inaccurate since this population of the same origin is identified with that settled in New Zealand and has been replaced by the word “Tahitian” although sometimes both used at the same time with the same meaning.
In November, December 1911 and January 1912 Gauguin’s works were exhibited at the Stafford Gallery in London. It should be borne in mind that Gauguin carried out his activity in Polynesia in extremely precarious conditions with the help of friends, such as the painter George Daniel de Monfreid, who sent him money and painting supplies. Gauguin’s paintings made in Polynesia arrived in Europe rolled up, with shipments, and once they reached their destination they were put on the frame and retouched by others for sale.
The works painted by Gauguin in Polynesia arrived in Europe rolled up, with naval shipments, and once they reached their destination they were put on the frames and – due to the possible damages incurred during the journey – they were also retouched by George Daniel de Monfreid and by the other painter Georges Alfred Chaudet who had met Gauguin in Pont Aven, becoming friends with him and also helping him with money to reach Polynesia.
Gauguin himself wrote in a letter to Van Gogh about the problems of holding the white color – stating that “the canvases are totally covered with scales because the white color has separated” – about his experiments and attempts to fix it by gluing sheets of newspaper on the canvas with flour paste and then passing over it with heated irons.
It must be considered that at that time the sale was certainly not regulated as it is today and therefore it is unthinkable that the various changes of ownership can be fully documented since only in modern times have more precise practices been adopted: the importance of the “given word” has been replaced by the written act due to a clear decline in values.
Only later, and not all the paintings, were then equipped with frames that certainly had to be in harmony with the classic style of furniture in vogue at the time: this painting is completed by its original Rococo-style frame, perfectly in line with the taste of the wealthy classes of the early twentieth century.
The works of Paul Gauguin with Tahitian subject, as is precisely this, are highly sought on the art market and change ownership at very high values given their extreme rarity: in this regard, it is sufficient to remember that the similar “Nafea Faa Ipoipo” was purchased in 2015 for 300 million US dollars equal to 265 million euros. In 2014 another painting by Gauguin “Otahi”, but less complete and smaller, had already reached 120 million US dollars. Signs of this sharp growth had however occurred in 2007 when “Te Poipoi” had been paid around 40 million US dollars.
By now in the “current” empyrean of values, Gauguin has not always been appreciated by collectors and dealers so much so that the exhibition of his paintings of 18953 [3Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Vente Gauguin, February 18, 1895, lot 11 and 17] also saw these latter two unsold, albeit valued at only 500 and 400 francs.
In 1937 “Tahiti”, offered for sale by George Bernheim in Paris, was sold only for 1,700 US dollars and in 1939 “Aus Tahiti” – offered at the famous auction in Lucerne on 30 June 1939 in which the German government of the time put on sale paintings of very high quality – was sold for just under 12,000 US dollars, a value that anticipated those of the mid-1950s.
Compared to the values of the paintings of the Post-Impressionists Cezanne and Van Gogh, the values of Gauguin’s paintings were the lowest until 1950 when an impetuous growth led him to exceed them reaching the quarter of a million around 1960: on November 25th 1959, in London, “Te Tai Na Ve I Te Rata” was sold for 130 thousand British pounds equal to 364 thousand US dollars. Between 1930 and 1960 Gauguin appreciated 126 times and this growth never stopped, progressing to conspicuous multiples to reach the current values.
The value of this group of Post-Impressionist Artists rose from a base percentage of 100% in 1930 to 115% in 1935, to 160% in 1940 which remained unchanged for part of the decade, to 177% in 1950, to 566% in 1955, to the extraordinary 4.833% in 1960: in comparison the Impressionists appreciated, in the latter period, by 1.208%.
“Beautes a Tahiti” is to be assimilated to the three mentioned at the beginning – the measures are similar to those of “Nafea Faa Ipoipo” (105×77.5 cm) while “Otahi” is significantly smaller (50×73 cm) – all produced during the artist’s first Polynesian stay spent between 1891 and 1893 – but it is to be considered superior from a compositional and qualitative point of view: the conservation conditions are good and therefore do not negatively affect the overall evaluation.
The common thread of the three paintings is given by the model portrayed who in “Beautes a Tahiti” draws water in the foreground, in “Nafea Faa Ipoipo” she is the protagonist, and whose physiognomy is recognized, and in “Otahi” is the only depicted subject, where she wears the same red pareo with stylized flowers here yellow and white in “Beautes a Tahiti”.
It should be noted the coincidence of the standing female figure with that depicted in the drawing stored at the Museum of Grenoble (Fig. 4)4 [4https://www.museedegrenoble.fr/oeuvre/1603/1922-sans-titre.htm%5D – study for the painting “Tahitian Woman in a Landscape” of 1892, stored at the Ohara Art Museum in Kurashiki and displayed in Paris by Durand Ruel in the exhibition “Oeuvres Recents de Gauguin” held in 1893, then sold in 1895 for 500 francs – and dating back to those years: in “Beautes a Tahiti” also the pose is very close to the pose of the Grenoble drawing unlike the pose of the model of the two other paintings.
Compared to the other two paintings, in “Beautes a Tahiti” the composition is clearly more complete given the succession of sequences that follow one another up to the last ones of the sea and sky thus framing the two protagonists, the vegetation and a horse, this last subject a typical component of Gauguin’s poetics as well as the many red tones used.
The study of the radiographic image (Fig. 5) has shown that originally Gauguin painted the two women in positions and features different from those visible in the final version.
The X-ray image indeed reveals that the face of the woman standing left was originally painted in profile, her breasts more pronounced, her two arms thinner, etc.
As for the second kneeling female figure, the X-ray shows a wider head profile, her shoulders and arms were thinner, both hands were smaller, etc. Another major change was made to this kneeling figure: the sarong, which originally reached mid-thighs, leaving the knees and legs uncovered, was lengthened and large white flowers were later added.
And the same kneeling prominent figure is depicted by the Artist with the same clothing in the painting “Two Tahitian Women on the Beach” of 1891, stored in Paris at the Orsay Museum and in the “Two Tahitian Women Sitting” of 1892, now at the Gemaldegalerie in Dresden in the Neue Meister section and which was exhibited in 1893 in Copenhagen.
This type of modification or “repentance” (“pentimento”) is common in Gauguin and there are several examples. An X-ray examination of the 1892 painting “Te nave nave fenua” revealed the presence of another head under the final face of the figure; in another painting, “The Meal (The Bananas)” of 1891, an infrared photograph revealed several alterations made by Gauguin: the boy in a shirt was originally a girl with long hair.
Furthermore, the radiographic examination also reveals the presence of two horizontal lines crossing the central part of the painting: it is the result of the thrust exerted by a smaller bar than the current (final) bar, and which was part of a previous frame.
An observation of the paint surface reveals white cracks that are characteristic of the canvases painted by Gauguin during the Tahitian period due to the fact that the canvases were removed from their frame and then rolled up by the artist for transport from Tahiti to Paris.
© Giancarlo Graziani, Visiting Professor of Art Economy, Founder member and Supervisor of Ce.St.Art. – Center for Studies of Art Economy
© Salvatore Prato, Member of Ce.St.Art. – Center for Studies of Art Economy
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