The Bathers

1897

Paul Gauguin

Painter, French, 1848 - 1903

Four young women with olive-green-colored skin shaded with cool blue stand or sit in a vividly colored landscape surrounded by trees in this horizontal painting. A slender, spruce-blue tree divides the picture just to our left of center. The ground around the tree spans the width of the composition and is carpeted in coral orange, carnation pink, and lavender purple with a handful of emerald-green saplings and tufts of grass. A pair of young women are to each side of the central tree, and a body of water extends across the composition just beyond this bit of land. To our left, the two women’s bodies face away, and they look back over their left shoulders at us. The girl on the left has black hair and wears a honey-orange and pale blue fabric wrapped around her waist. The girl next to her has copper-red hair with a pink cloth wrapped around her chest. They stand by or in the water so are shown from the knees up. The water there is made up of swirling pools of flame red and golden yellow bordered by lilac purple and peacock blue. On the other side of the tree, a young woman with white flowers in her brown hair sits on the ground, also with her back to us. The fourth faces us along the right edge of the canvas. She has black hair and stands next to and touches a thicker tree trunk with one hand. These two women are nude. The water beyond them is painted with patches of rose pink, lemon yellow, and ice blue. Areas mottled with teal, honeydew, and bottle green suggest shrubs and trees lining the far side of the water. Closer inspection reveals two ghostly, pale blue dogs lying on the ground near the lower right corner. The artist signed and dated in lower right, “P Gauguin 97.”

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Sam A. Lewisohn

  • Dimensions

    overall: 60.4 x 93.4 cm (23 3/4 x 36 3/4 in.)
    framed: 82 x 114.3 x 7.9 cm (32 5/16 x 45 x 3 1/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1951.5.1

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Sold 30 October 1898 via George Daniel de Monfreid [1856-1929] to Ambroise Vollard [1867-1939], Paris;[1] sold November 1898 to Edgar Degas [1834-1917]; (Degas atelier sale I, Galerie George Petit, Paris, 26-27 March 1918, no. 47 as Tahiti, paysage, 93 x 61 cm. [dimensions reversed]); (Jos Hessel, Paris) and/or (Ambroise Vollard, Paris);[2] probably sold to Adolph Lewisohn [c. 1849-1938], New York, by 1921;[3] by inheritance to his son, Sam A. Lewisohn [1884-1951], New York; bequest 1951 to NGA.
[1] In a letter from de Monfreid to Gauguin of 11 November 1898 (A. Joly-Segalen, ed., Lettres de Gauguin à Daniel de Monfreid, Paris, 1950: 209), de Monfreid discusses four paintings from the latest consignment he had received from Gauguin which he has just sold to Vollard. The NGA painting is described as: "2o Des femmes qui se baignent, dans un paysage papillotant, rappelant le petit panneau que vous avez donné (ou vendu) au Dr Gouzer. Une belle toile, entre parenthèses" ("2o Women bathing, in a shimmering landscape, which reminds me of the small panel you gave [or sold] to Dr. Gouzer. A lovely canvas, by the way).
[2] For a complete description of the early provenance, see Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde, Exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2006: no. 94.
[3] The painting was lent by Lewisohn to a 1921 exhibition in New York.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1898

  • Exposition Gauguin, Galerie Vollard, Paris, 17 November - 10 December 1898.

1921

  • Loan Exhibition of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1921, no. 54, repro.

1929

  • First Loan Exhibition: Cézanne, Gauguin, Seurat, van Gogh, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1929, no. 48, repro.

1934

  • The Development of Landscape Painting Through Twenty Centuries of European Art, Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, 1934, no. 22.

1935

  • A Survey of French Painting, Baltimore Museum of Art, 1935, no. 14, repro.

1941

  • French Painting from David to Toulouse-Lautrec, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1941, no. 53, repro.

1944

  • Corot to Picasso, The American British Art Center, New York, 1944, no. 9, repro., as The Bathers (Women by a River).

1946

  • A Loan Exhibition of Paul Gauguin for the Benefit of the New York Infirmary, Wildenstein & Co., Inc., New York, 1946, no. 33.

1951

  • The Lewisohn Collection: A Catalogue ... before the dispersal of bequests to various museums and galleries, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1951, no. 35.

1980

  • Post-Impressionism: Cross-Currents in European and American Painting 1880-1906, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980, not in catalogue.

1986

  • Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, State Hermitage Museum, Leningrad; State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, 1986, no. 7, repro.

1987

  • Paul Gauguin, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Aichi Pregectural Art Gallery, Nagoya, 1987, no. 72, repro., dated 1893.

1988

  • The Art of Paul Gauguin, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Art Institute of Chicago; Grand Palais, Paris, 1988-1989, no. 224, repro.

1990

  • Französische Impressionisten und ihre Wegbereiter aus der National Gallery of Art, Washington und dem Cincinnati Art Museum, Neue Pinakothek, Munich, 1990, no. 69, repro.

1992

  • From El Greco to Cézanne: Masterpieces of European Painting from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and The Metroplitan Museum of Art, New York, National Gallery of Greece, Athens, 1992-1993, no. 68, repro.

1997

  • The Private Collection of Edgar Degas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1997-1998, no. 487, repro., as Bathers (Tahitian Landscape).

2000

  • The Year 1900: Art at the Crossroads, Royal Academy of Arts, London; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2000, no. 58, repro.

2006

  • Cezanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant Garde, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Art Institute of Chicago; Musée d'Orsay, Paris, 2006-2007, no. 94, fig. 75.

2010

  • Gauguin: Maker of Myth, Tate, London; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2010-2011, no. 114, repro.

2011

  • Gauguin / Polynesia, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen; Seattle Art Museum, 2011-2012, no. 292, repro.

Bibliography

1928

  • Bourgeois, Stephan. The Adolph Lewisohn Collection of Modern French Paintings and Sculptures. New York, 1928: 165, repro.

1964

  • Wildenstein, Georges. Gauguin. 2 vols. Paris, 1964: 240, no. 572, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 55.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 48, repro.

1972

  • Sugana, Gabriele Mandel. Tout l'ouevre peint de Gauguin. Milan, 1972: no. 393, repro.

1973

  • Rewald, John. The History of Impressionism. New York, 1973: 573, repro.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 146, repro.

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: repro. 529.

1981

  • Sugana, Gabriele Mandel. Tout l'oeuvre peint de Gauguin. Paris, 1981: no. 393, repro.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 524, no. 788, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 167, repro.

1988

  • Cafritz, Robert C., Lawrence Gowing, and David Rosand. Places of Delight: The Pastoral Landscape. Washington, 1988: 234, repro.

1991

  • Coman, Florence E. Joie de Vivre: French Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1991: no. 25, repro.

1997

  • Ives, Colta et al. The Private Collection of Edgar Degas: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1997: no. 487.

  • Dumas, Ann, et al. The Private Collection of Edgar Degas. Exh. cat. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1997: no. 487, fig. 309, as Bathers (Tahitian Landscape).

2015

  • Welten, Ruud. “Paul Gauguin and the Complexity of the Primitivist Gaze.” Journal of Art Historiography 12 (2015): 12.

  • Jakobi, Marianne. Gauguin, Signac: la genèse du titre contemporain. Paris, 2015: repros. 181 and 183.

Inscriptions

lower right: P Gauguin 97

Wikidata ID

Q20190561

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