The elegant contours of this sculpture reflect the clarity of design that is so distinctive in Paul Gauguin’s painting. Its subject is Madame Schuffenecker, the wife of Gauguin’s lifelong friend and fellow artist Claude-Emile Schuffenecker. Gauguin frequently used their home in Paris as a base, and Claude-Emile often assisted Gauguin with the loan of funds, as well as acting as an intermediary in Gauguin’s unhappy marriage. After an earlier career in stockbroking, Gauguin began to paint full time in the 1880s. He exhibited with the Impressionists in 1881 and 1882, but then moved increasingly towards a Symbolist style, working with bright colours and powerful sense of design.

It is likely that this work was made just before the brief period when Gauguin relocated to Pont Aven, Brittany, to work alongside his friend Vincent van Gogh. Immediately after, in 1891, he set sail for Tahiti, where he went on to paint the Arcadian depictions of the South Pacific for which he is well remembered.