The Painting That Set Paul Gauguin's Auction Record But Not His Artist's Record

Paul Gauguin's Maternité II (1899) sold for $105.7m at Christie's in New York on November 9, 2022.

The sale beat Gauguin’s previous auction record by $66.52m, a 150% rise. That was also set by Maternite II (1899), when it sold for $39.21m at Sotheby's on November 4, 2004.

While still holding Gauguin's auction record, another of his celebrated, and now increasingly controversial paintings of young Tahitian women, Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?) (1892), sold for $210m in 2014 in a private deal. This was $90m less than originally thought when the buyer was widely reported to be a member of the Qatari royal family.

Maternite II (1899), an oil on burlap work, has been traded 18 times in the past, made its auction debut in the sale of the artist's possessions shortly after his death in 1903. It sold for just 150 francs.

Gauguin painted two versions of a work depicting three Tahitian women, one nursing a baby. His first version caused a sensation when unveiled in Paris in 1900. Since titled Maternité I (1899), it now hangs in the State Hermitage Museum, part of the collection of Modern art amassed by Sergei Shchukin, which was seized by the Bolsheviks.

Gauguin chose to keep his second version, which became known as Maternité II, in his own collection, although it seems he had planned to send it to Paris. After his death in the Marquesas Islands, the artist's possessions, including the painting, were sold in an auction. It was acquired by a French naval officer, who eventually took it to France, packed "between two shirts".

A Brief History of Gauguin at Auction