Paul Gauguin

Amédée Schuffenecker, Saint-Maur
Galerie Druet, Paris (acquired circa 1918)
Sale: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 20th October 1926, lot 27
Marcel Goldschmidt, Frankfurt (purchased at the above sale)
Alfred Wolf, Stuttgart & Buenos Aires (sale: Sotheby's, London, 24th April 1963, lot 5)
Mayor Gallery, London (purchased at the above sale)
Private Collection, United Kingdom (acquired circa 1983)
Sale: Bonhams, London, 22nd October 2003, lot 25

Gothenburg, Fransk Konst, 1918-19, no. 34 (titled Enfant laveur)

Georges Wildenstein, Gauguin, Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint, Paris, 1964, no. 234, illustrated
Daniel Wildenstein, Gauguin, Premier itinéraire d'un sauvage: Catalogue de l'œuvre peint (1873-1888), Paris, 2001, vol. II, no. 255, illustrated p. 347

The canvas is lined. There are no signs of retouching visible under UV light. Apart from a minor stretcher mark running along the top edge, this work is in good condition. Colours: Overall accurate, although the greens are deeper and the yellows are warmer in the original.
"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. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Gauguin painted the current work in 1887, during the period of his fruitful collaborations with Émile Bernard in Pont-Aven, and four years prior to his first travels in Tahiti. This was an enormously important period for the artist, and the current work exhibits both the Symbolist techniques that he had fostered at Pont-Aven, whilst also looking forward to his future travels in the South Pacific in terms of the work's content. While his compatriot Bernard concentrated his efforts on a Cloissonist style, seldom straying from religious themes, Gauguin was already moving towards his unique form of Symbolism that would have such an impact on late 19^th and early 20^th century art. The artist's unmatched ability to create a harmony of form and colour that is both lyrical in its fluidity and revolutionary in its palette is already in evidence.

Gauguin painted La petite laveuse while on the Caribbean island of Martinique and here depicts a young laundress amid tropical vegetation. The subject of 'primitive' life viewed through the eyes of a European intellectual would become an important element of the artist's work when he ventured to Tahiti several years later. Gauguin consciously subverted established art historical themes in these works; the theme of the laundress was an important one in 19^th century European art and the artist here challenges that trend with a revolutionary interpretation. As Colta Ives writes, '...It is no wonder that Gauguin's contemporaries found his work so maddeningly confusing; he was at work on several different fronts at the same time. The 'course sailor' of Gauguin's self-characterization was not only hugely intelligent but also well read, well traveled, and well versed in the history of art. Inventively, he turned his departure from France and physical break with Western culture into an opportunity to supplant old European icons with new, exotic ones. It is fascinating, even amusing, to compare the goddesses and odalisques of older masters with their new fashioned South Seas counterparts' (Colta Ives, "Gauguin's Ports of Call", in The Lure of the Exotic, Gauguin in New York Collections (exhibition catalogue), New York, 2002, pp. 8 & 9).