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Lot Essay
Following Gauguin's return in December 1888 from his ill-fated stay with Van Gogh in Arles and his departure for Tahiti just over two years later, Gauguin created a series of important wooden reliefs in Paris and Brittany. The masterpieces Soyez amoureuses (Boston, Museum of Fine Arts; Gray 76) and Soyez mysterieuses (Paris, Musée d'Orsay; G.87) stand at either end of the series. Les cygnes, the present work, also belongs to this group and relates most closely to Les ondines (G.75) in terms of its handling, as Christopher Gray has observed (op. cit., p. 318).
The group that assembled around Gauguin at Le Pouldu in 1889-90, the likely period of execution of Les cygnes, included Paul Sérusier and Jacob Meijer de Haan, and was committed to the decorative possibilities of their new creed of art. The richly adorned dining room at the inn of Marie Henry in the village was but the most famous example of this experimentation.
The present work was in originally owned by Ernest de Chamaillard, an self-trained artist who had first met Gauguin in Pont-Aven in 1888, and to whom Les cygnes was given by Gauguin himself. 'Vous avez l'amour de l'art, ça suffit,' was Gauguin's encouraging advice to de Chamaillard on this first encounter.
The group that assembled around Gauguin at Le Pouldu in 1889-90, the likely period of execution of Les cygnes, included Paul Sérusier and Jacob Meijer de Haan, and was committed to the decorative possibilities of their new creed of art. The richly adorned dining room at the inn of Marie Henry in the village was but the most famous example of this experimentation.
The present work was in originally owned by Ernest de Chamaillard, an self-trained artist who had first met Gauguin in Pont-Aven in 1888, and to whom Les cygnes was given by Gauguin himself. 'Vous avez l'amour de l'art, ça suffit,' was Gauguin's encouraging advice to de Chamaillard on this first encounter.