Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)

This work will be included in the forthcoming Paul Gauguin catalogue critique, currently being prepared under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Institute.

This drawing is a study for the dog in Gauguin's 1891 painting I raro te oviri in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (fig. 1). It was originally part of a portfolio of studies which the artist had labeled Documents Tahiti - 1891, 1892, 1893. In the finished painting, the animal has assumed a nearly identical posture to that of the study, and is similarly set against a purple background.