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Paul Gauguin

Pair of Wooden Shoes (Sabots) [left], 1889/1890

West Building, Ground Floor — Gallery G5

Medium

polychromed oak, leather, and iron nails

Dimensions

overall: 12.9 x 32.7 x 11.3 cm (5 1/16 x 12 7/8 x 4 7/16 in.)

Credit Line

Chester Dale Collection

Accession Number

1963.10.239.b

Artists / Makers

Paul Gauguin (artist) French, 1848 - 1903

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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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

Bignou, Etienne
Cochennec, Ida, Mme
Dale, Chester
Henry, Marie
Lenoble, Louise, Mme

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.

1956: 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.

1965: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Paintings & Sculpture of the French School in the Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 146, repro.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 157.

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.