1985.R.28 Paul Gauguin, Portrait Vase of Mme. Schuffenecker | DMA Staging Content Management System

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

It was most probably during 1889, when he was briefly living in his friend Emile Schuffenecker’s studio that Paul Gauguin completed Portrait Vase of Mme. Schuffenecker. Made at the height of his ceramic production, it is a fine example of the techniques he mastered under his mentor Ernest Chaplet’s watchful eye. After modeling the stoneware to fashion her thin elongated face, prominent cheekbones, and almond shaped eyes, he painted the vessel with white, pink, blue, green slip, then after firing, used gold paint to add details. In the vase, Madame Schuffenecker is depicted as a pale nude whose disembodied hand provocatively arranges a spotted hair ribbon that encircles her head to end in the pointed profile of a snake. At the base, he carved a floral decoration that includes a long serpent winding around a tree. That Gauguin depicted his loyal friend’s wife as a temptress and related her to Eve is not surprising given her rejections to his all-too-frequent advances that would eventually lead to the end of the friendship between Gauguin and the Schuffeneckers in 1891.

Adapted from

Martha MacLeod, DMA gallery text, 2015.

NOTES

c. 1889-1890

Checked Piction

Catalogue essays

The Reves Gift to the DMA

At La Pausa with Wendy and Emery Reves

Emery Reves

The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection

Winston Churchill and Wendy and Emery Reves

The Renaissance of La Pausa

Wendy Reves

Modernism

Post-Impressionism

Artist/designers

Gauguin, Paul (French, 1848-1903)

Cultures

Geography

Place of origin: Paris (France): TGN: 7008038

Process/materials

Glazed stoneware

Historical periods

Individuals

Subject terms

RELATED OBJECTS

PROVENANCE

AUDIO ASSETS

VIDEO ASSETS

IMAGE ASSETS

WEB RESOURCES

The Metropolitan Museum of Art~Read a biography of Paul Gauguin from the Met.
Mus ée d'Orsay, Paris~View the portrait Gauguin painted of the Schuffenecker family in 1889.

ARCHIVAL RESOURCES

FUN FACTS

TEACHING IDEAS

TI Paul Gauguin, Portrait Vase of Mme. Schuffenecker

RULES

Apply to objects where number equals 1985.R.28

General Description

It was most probably during 1889, when he was briefly living in his friend Emile Schuffenecker’s studio that Paul Gauguin completed Portrait Vase of Mme. Schuffenecker. Made at the height of his ceramic production, it is a fine example of the techniques he mastered under his mentor Ernest Chaplet’s watchful eye. After modeling the stoneware to fashion her thin elongated face, prominent cheekbones, and almond shaped eyes, he painted the vessel with white, pink, blue, green slip, then after firing, used gold paint to add details. In the vase, Madame Schuffenecker is depicted as a pale nude whose disembodied hand provocatively arranges a spotted hair ribbon that encircles her head to end in the pointed profile of a snake. At the base, he carved a floral decoration that includes a long serpent winding around a tree. That Gauguin depicted his loyal friend’s wife as a temptress and related her to Eve is not surprising given her rejections to his all-too-frequent advances that would eventually lead to the end of the friendship between Gauguin and the Schuffeneckers in 1891.