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La Guerre et La Paix: La Guerre


War and Peace: War
Paul Gauguin (French, 1848–1903)
1901
Object Place: Oceania, Tahiti

Medium/Technique Painted tamanu wood
Dimensions 44.45 x 99.53 cm (17 1/2 x 39 3/16 in.)
Credit Line Gift of Laurence K. and Lorna J. Marshall
Accession Number63.2764
CollectionsEurope
ClassificationsSculpture
This panel, one of a pair with 63.2765, incorporating motifs from classical reliefs and from the Javanese Buddhist sanctuary Borobudur, was among the last sculptures Gauguin carved in Tahiti. These two panels, from very late in the artist's career, were commissioned by Gustave Fayet, an important early French collector of Gauguin's art.

DescriptionPair to 63.2765, "La Guerre et la Paix: La Guerre"
InscriptionsCarved in relief at top center: "La Guerre et La Paix"; at bottom right: "PGO [in script]"
Provenance1901, sent by the artist in Tahiti to Gustave Fayet (b. 1865 - d. 1925), Béziers, France [see note 1]; to Fayet's uncle, Léon Fayet, Arles. By 1961, Mr. and Mrs. Laurence K. Marshall, Cambridge, MA; 1963, year-end gift of Laurence K. and Lorna J. Marshall to the MFA. (Accession Date: December 30, 1963)

NOTES:
[1] Gauguin executed the reliefs War and Peace (La Guerre et La Paix; MFA accession nos. 63.2764 - 63.2765) for the collector Gustave Fayet in 1901. This is discussed in a series of letters between Daniel de Monfried and Gauguin written in 1901. See Christopher Gray, Sculpture and Ceramics of Paul Gauguin (New York, 1980), pp. 73, 272-273 (with further bibliography).