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Paul Gauguin (artist) French, 1848 - 1903 Madame Alexandre Kohler, 1887/1888 oil on linen Overall: 46.3 x 38 cm (18 1/4 x 14 15/16 in.) framed: 61.6 x 52.7 cm (24 1/4 x 20 3/4 in.) Chester Dale Collection 1963.10.27 Not on View |
Provenance
Gift of the artist to the sitter, Mme Alexandre Kohler.[1] Probably Amédée Schuffenecker [1854-1936], by 1906. [2] Leon Pédron, Le Havre; (his sale, Paris, 2 June 1926, no. 23); purchased by (Galerie L. Dru, Paris); sold 6 June 1926 to Chester Dale [1883-1962], New York;[3] bequest 1963 to NGA.
[1] As noted in an inventory kept by Gauguin noting the whereabouts of his paintings. A facsimile of the carnet containing the inventory list is reproduced and annotated in René Huyghe, Le Carnet de Paul Gauguin (Paris, 1950), volume II, page 226. Mme Kohler was a neighbor of Emile Schuffennecker, Amédée's brother. (See Marice Maligne, ed.,Letters of Gauguin, Paris, 1946, p.132, n.2.) Claude Emile Schuffenecker was a friend and early collector of Gauguin. Due to his divorce that was finalized in 1904, he sold his collection of over 100 works by Gauguin, van Gogh and others to his brother Amédée in the hopes that the collection would remain in tact. Amédée, however, was just starting out as a dealer and sold many of the works. (See Sophie Monneret, Impressionnisme et son époque, Paris, 1978, volume 2, p. 333 and Claude-Emile Schuffenecker, Exh. cat., University Art Gallery, State University of New York at Binghamton and Hammer Galleries, 1980, p. 29). This picture might have been among those that passed between the brothers.
[2] According to Daniel Wildenstein, Gauguin: Premier itinéraire d'un sauvage, 2001: no. 258, the painting had left the sitter's possession c. 1904. It is for sale when exhibited in Munich in 1906. [3] Date of Chester Dale's acquisition from his papers in NGA curatorial records.