GAUGUIN Paul (1848-1903)

Lot 275
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Estimation :
8000 - 10000 EUR
Result with fees
Result : 14 300EUR
GAUGUIN Paul (1848-1903)
Signed autograph letter addressed to Émile SCHUFFENECKER Tahiti, April 10, 1896, 4 pages in-4 in ink on ochre paper, autograph envelope preserved (torn, postal mark but no stamp). (Slightly marked folds, small slit on the fold of one of the pages). Beautiful letter written during Gauguin's second and final stay in Tahiti. The painter, desperate, exposes the material difficulties that lead him to abdicate all pride and evokes the lack of recognition towards him, he whose boldness taught freedom to artists who sell more than he does. He asks for help from his friend, the painter Schuffenecker, whom he has known since 1873 and whose friendship will never fail. He mentions his wife Mette's "usual antics" to get money, whereas he believes she is not unhappy at all and earns an easy living in Copenhagen. She has therefore deceived Schuffenecker by asking him to send her paintings, but Gauguin cannot blame his friend. As for Gauguin, he is "up to his neck in molasses", in debt and destitute. Although he trusts the art dealer Lévy, a very whole man who is "convinced and very skillful" unlike many others, he absolutely needs money for only four months, even if he only drinks water and eats bread and tea... "At the age of 50 I am soon on the ground without strength and without hope. I have given freedom to the youth, as it were, for lack of teaching: by my boldness everyone today dares to paint next to nature and everyone benefits from it, sells next to me, because once again everything seems understandable next to me. Finally, let us not recriminate. Still, I have lost all pride. I have never been protected because I was thought to be strong, but today I am weak and I ask for protection. He compares his situation to that of Émile Bernard and Charles Filiger, "young people less interesting than me" who benefit from the protection and help of their families. Gauguin asked Schuffenecker to ask the Count of La Rochefoucauld for a loan: "Daumier, w
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