.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Ensayo del lote
Among the earliest works by Paul Gauguin, Poires et raisins offers a rare glimpse into the artist’s formative years, before the development of his distinctive Post-Impressionist style. Set against a dark background, a modest arrangement of pears and grapes rests upon a white tablecloth, its folds rendered in loose, expressive brushstrokes. The warm ochres and russets of the fruit contrast with the deep purple grapes and luminous white linen, while Gauguin’s rich, tactile application of paint lends the fruit a striking sense of weight and physicality. The juxtaposition of these solid, rounded forms with the fluid folds of the fabric brings a quiet dynamism to the composition.
The precise beginnings of Gauguin’s artistic practice remain somewhat obscure. Largely self-taught, he began painting while working as a stockbroker in Paris, with his friend and fellow painter Émile Schuffenecker recalling that Gauguin made “his first attempts at painting without assistance” (quoted in D. Wildenstein, Gauguin, A Savage in the Making: Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings (1873–1888), Paris, 2002, vol. I, p. XIII). His earliest paintings were predominantly landscapes, indebted to Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot in their subdued palette and painterly handling. By the mid-1870s, however, Gauguin had also begun exploring still life, a genre that allowed him to arrange and study his subjects with particular attention to the interplay of form, light, and texture. In Poires et raisins, the carefully considered arrangement and contrasting treatment of fruit and fabric reveal an artist already developing a sensitivity to the expressive possibilities of his medium.
Poires et raisins also has a noteworthy early provenance. Believed to have belonged to the artist’s wife, Mette Gauguin, the painting subsequently entered the collection of Benny Dessau, the prominent Danish businessman and longtime chairman of the Danish Museum of Decorative Art, now Designmuseum Danmark. A friend of Mette Gauguin, Dessau owned several works by the artist, reflecting the enduring ties between Gauguin and Denmark. The painting later passed to Einar Dessau and was included in several major exhibitions devoted to Gauguin, including those held at Copenhagen’s Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in 1948 and the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh and Tate Gallery in London in 1955.
The precise beginnings of Gauguin’s artistic practice remain somewhat obscure. Largely self-taught, he began painting while working as a stockbroker in Paris, with his friend and fellow painter Émile Schuffenecker recalling that Gauguin made “his first attempts at painting without assistance” (quoted in D. Wildenstein, Gauguin, A Savage in the Making: Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings (1873–1888), Paris, 2002, vol. I, p. XIII). His earliest paintings were predominantly landscapes, indebted to Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot in their subdued palette and painterly handling. By the mid-1870s, however, Gauguin had also begun exploring still life, a genre that allowed him to arrange and study his subjects with particular attention to the interplay of form, light, and texture. In Poires et raisins, the carefully considered arrangement and contrasting treatment of fruit and fabric reveal an artist already developing a sensitivity to the expressive possibilities of his medium.
Poires et raisins also has a noteworthy early provenance. Believed to have belonged to the artist’s wife, Mette Gauguin, the painting subsequently entered the collection of Benny Dessau, the prominent Danish businessman and longtime chairman of the Danish Museum of Decorative Art, now Designmuseum Danmark. A friend of Mette Gauguin, Dessau owned several works by the artist, reflecting the enduring ties between Gauguin and Denmark. The painting later passed to Einar Dessau and was included in several major exhibitions devoted to Gauguin, including those held at Copenhagen’s Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in 1948 and the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh and Tate Gallery in London in 1955.