Parau Parau

Details

Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Parau Parau
signed, titled and inscribed 'Gauguin Parau Parau no' (upper center)
brush and black and brown inks on toned paper
10 5/8 x 7 ½ in. (27 x 19 cm.)
Painted in 1891-1893

Provenance

Paco Durrio, Paris.
Walter Geiser, Basel.
Galerie Rosengart, Lucerne (acquired from the above, 1938).
Dr. Richard Doetsch-Benziger, Basel (acquired from the above, 1942).
Wolfgang Donndorf, Stuttgart.
Anon. sale, Stuttgarter Kunstkabinett, 20-21 May 1960, lot 133.
Anon. sale, Galerie Kornfeld, Bern, 22 June 1990, lot 463.
Anon. (acquired at the above sale); sale, Christie's, New York, 12 November 1997, lot 220.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.

Exhibited

Kunsthalle Basel, Paul Gauguin, July-August 1928, p. 28, no. 196.
Berlin, Galerie Thannhauser, Paul Gauguin, October 1928, p. 15, no. 174.
London, The Leicester Galleries (Ernest Brown & Phillips), The Durrio Collection of Works by Paul Gauguin, May-June 1931, no. 45.
Kunsthalle Basel, Kunstwerke des 19. Jahrhunderts aus Basler Privatbesitz, May-July 1943, p. 22, no. 157.
Kunstmuseum Basel, Paul Gauguin, November 1949-January 1950, p. 60, no. 133.
Stuttgart, Württembergischer Kunstverein, Exotische Welten, Europäische Phantasien, September-November 1987.

Brought to you by

Vanessa Fusco

vfusco@christies.com +1 212 636 2050

Lot Essay

This work will be included in the forthcoming Paul Gauguin Digital Catalogue Raisonné, currently being prepared under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc.

The figures and their placement in Parau Parau are closely related to the painting Parau Hanohano, Paroles terrifiantes, executed in Tahiti in 1892 (Wildenstein, no. 460). The painting further develops the theme of the related oil Contes barbares (Wildenstein, no. 459) by introducing the figures of two idols into the background, the larger of which is faintly visible in the present study.

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