The folks at Artcurial in Paris are getting in on the Paul Gauguin action with the opening of the National Gallery in London’s big show. The Paris auction house has found a Tahitian picture that is the last of the series to remain in private hands. This one was displayed at the Met in New York for more than a decade until it recently went home to descendants of the Vollard family. Here’s Artcurial on the €5-7m painting that will sell in Paris this December:
Paul Gauguin entitled Te Bouaro on December 3rd as part of the auction house’s Impressionist and Modern sales in Paris. The artwork has been estimated at €5-7m and is currently exhibited in Artcurial’s headquarters until 31 October 2019.
This never-seen on the market oil on canvas comes from a series of nine paintings, made by Paul Gauguin in Tahiti in 1897. The set of paintings, all featuring Tahitian themes, was sent the following year to Paris as part of an exhibition at the Galerie Ambroise Vollard, devoted to the artist.
Te Bourao is the only one of this set still owned by a private family. Artcurial has acquired the piece directly from the heirs of the Vollard family. The other eight paintings adorn the walls of the most prestigious institutions: the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg or the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.
From 1898 to the present day, Te Bourao has been featured in Paul Gauguin’s major Tahitian exhibitions around the world, at the Fogg Art Museum in Cambridge, at the Museum of Art in Batlimore, at the Grand Palais or at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. The piece was a loan of the Metropolitan Museum in New York from 2006 to 2017.
