Pair of Wooden Shoes (Sabots) [right]
1889/1890
Artist, French, 1848 - 1903
_[right]_1963.10.239.a.jpg){kind=link}
West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G5
Artwork overview
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Medium
polychromed oak, leather, and iron nails
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Credit Line
-
Dimensions
overall: 12.8 x 32.7 x 11.2 cm (5 1/16 x 12 7/8 x 4 7/16 in.)
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Accession
1963.10.239.a
Associated Artworks
Pair of Wooden Shoes (Sabots) [left]
Paul Gauguin
1889
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
Marie Henry, Le Pouldu [1859-1945];[1] her daughter, Madame Ida Cochennec [b. 1891];[2] possibly Madame Lenoble, Paris;[3] (Etienne Bignou, Paris and New York), by 1928;[4] Chester Dale [1883-1962], New York, by February 1956;[5] bequest 1963 to NGA.
[1] Christopher Gray, Sculpture and Ceramics of Paul Gauguin, Baltimore, 1963: 200, claims Malingue had a photograph dating from 1889 that showed these with the Figure of a Martinique Negress, which is documented as belonging to Marie Henry. Maurice Malingue, "Du nouveau sur Gauguin", L'Oeil 55-56 (July-August 1959): 37-38, himself lists among some old photographs of works belonging to her, a photograph of sabots taken in 1895, whose description matches only the National Gallery pair in size, polychromy, and decoration with human figures: "No. 7: Sabots de Gauguin sculptés et peints, 13 x 33 cm. Sur le dessus des sabots, dans un cercle, sont sculptées de petites Bretonnes." For a biography of Marie Henry ("Poupée"), see Jean-Marie Cusinberche, "La Buvette de la Plage racontée par...," in Chemin de Gauguin: Génèse et rayonnement, Exh. cat., Musée Départemental du Prieuré, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 1985: 114-115, 127. Gauguin stayed at her inn intermittently from the summer of 1889 through November 1890 (Charles Chassé, Gauguin et le groupe de Pont-Aven. Documents inédits, Paris, 1921: 25; Charles Chassé, Gauguin et son temps, Paris, 1955: 65-67; and Cahn in The Art of Paul Gauguin, Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art; Art Institute of Chicago; Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais; Washington, D.C., 1988: 47-49). For an account of Gauguin's lawsuit against Henry, to reclaim works left with her in 1890, see Chassé 1955: 89.
[2] Malingue 1959: 36-38, and Cusinberche in Prieuré 1985: 115.
[3] Gauguin, Exh. cat., Art Institute of Chicago, 1959: no. 117. This information may instead apply to the other pair of sabots catalogued by Gray 1963, 201, as of these dimensions and belonging first to Ernest Chaplet, then to his daughter, Louise Lenoble.
[4] Cited as the lender to the 1928 exhibition at the Musée du Luxembourg.
5] Cited as the lender to the 1956 Society of the Four Arts exhibition in Palm Beach.
Associated Names
Exhibition History
1919
Possibly Paul Gauguin: Exposition d'Oeuvres inconnues, Galerie Barbazanges, Paris, 1919, no. 29, as Les Sabots de Gauguin.
1923
Possibly Exposition rétrospective de Paul Gauguin, Galerie L. Dru, Paris, 1923, no. 62.
1928
Gauguin, Sculpteur et Graveur, Musée du Luxembourg, Paris, 1928, no. 27.
1956
Loan Exhibition. Gauguin. For the benefit of the Citizens' Committee for Children of New York City, Inc., Wildenstein and Company, New York, 1956, no. 104.
Paul Gauguin 1848-1903, The Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach, Florida, 1956, no. 29, as Wooden Sabots.
1959
Gauguin: Paintings, Drawings, Prints, Sculpture, The Art Institute of Chicago; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1959, no. 117, as Wooden Shoes, Carved and Painted.
1960
Paul Gauguin, Haus der Kunst, Munich, 1960, no. 142, repro., as Holzschuhe.
1965
The Chester Dale Bequest, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1965, unnumbered checklist.
1981
Gauguin to Moore: Primitivism in Modern Sculpture, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada, 1981-1982, no. 2, repro.
1989
Gogen: Vzgliad iz Rossii [Gauguin], The State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow; The State Hermitage Museum, Leningrad, 1989, not in cat.
1992
Gauguin et Ses Amis Peintres, Yokohama Museum of Art; Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art; Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, 1992, no. 12, repro.
2000
Paul Gauguin: Von der Bretagne nach Tahiti. Ein Aufbruch zur Moderne, Steiermärkisches Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz, Austria, 2000, no. 42, repro.
2010
Gauguin: Maker of Myth, Tate, London; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2010-2011, no. 50, repro.
2017
Gauguin: Artist as Alchemist, The Art Institute of Chicago; Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 2017-2018, no. 49, repro.
Bibliography
1906
Rotonchamp, Jean de [pseud. of Louis Brouillon]. Paul Gauguin 1848-1903. Weimar, 1906.
1959
Malingue, Maurice. "Du nouveau sur Gauguin." L'Oeil 55-56 (July-August 1959): 37-38.
1963
Gray, Christopher. Sculpture and Ceramics of Paul Gauguin. Baltimore, 1963: 200, repro.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 157.
Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Paintings & Sculpture of the French School in the Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 146, repro.
1968
National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 139, repro.
1994
Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1994: 96, repro.
2000
Butler, Ruth, and Suzanne Glover Lindsay, with Alison Luchs, Douglas Lewis, Cynthia J. Mills, and Jeffrey Weidman. European Sculpture of the Nineteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2000: 236-239, color repro.
2010
Bailey, Martin. "Gauguin's clogs." The Burlington Magazine 152, no. 1289 (August 2010): 540-543, fig. 42.
Wikidata ID
Q63854775