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Lot Essay
In 1893-1894, Gauguin executed a stoneware sculpture of the Tahitian Goddess Oviri, the deity of death and mourning whose name translates from Tahitian as "savage." The goddess clutches a shewolf cub to her, a symbol of her wild power. Oviri is also the name of the melancholy song which Gauguin translated and included in his Tahitian journal, Noa Noa. In it, the artist expressed his attraction to the wild and "uncivilized" world in which he found himself in voluntary exile and which he had enthusiastically embraced.
According to Christopher Gray, Gauguin "considered Oviri amoung his finest works and desired it to be placed over his grave. There already exists three casts in plaster which have been given the surface of finished wood. One copy was given to Daniel de Monfreid. The second was kept by [Gustave] Fayet, and passed into the collection of his son, Léon. The third was kept by the artist" (op. cit., p. 245). A special cast was erected on 29 March 1973 on Gauguin's tomb in the cemetery of Atuana by the Foundation Singer-Polignac.
According to Christopher Gray, Gauguin "considered Oviri amoung his finest works and desired it to be placed over his grave. There already exists three casts in plaster which have been given the surface of finished wood. One copy was given to Daniel de Monfreid. The second was kept by [Gustave] Fayet, and passed into the collection of his son, Léon. The third was kept by the artist" (op. cit., p. 245). A special cast was erected on 29 March 1973 on Gauguin's tomb in the cemetery of Atuana by the Foundation Singer-Polignac.