Apr 10, 2025 - Sale 2699

Sale 2699 - Lot 127

Price Realized: $ 4,750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 6,000 - $ 9,000
GOING OUT OF HIS MIND ABOUT RECEIVING PAYMENT FOR HIS PAINTINGS GAUGUIN, PAUL. Autograph Letter Signed, to George-Daniel de Monfreid ("My dear Daniel"), in French, with woodcut letterhead, complaining of his inability to work while suffering from the flu, requesting that he write Georges Orsini to inquire after Gauguin's paintings sent to him and giving Orsini's address in Charente-Maritime, stating that he believes his recently-deceased Paris dealer Georges Chaudet still owes him 2000 francs and, in a postscript, reporting that [dealer Ambroise] Vollard is inquiring about the price of the large painting and that no less than 1500 francs would be accepted. The woodcut, print showing his initials "P.G." [made by imprinting lower section of a woodblock used by Gauguin on other letters]. 1¼ pages, 4to, quad-ruled paper, written on first and terminal pages of folded sheet; slight scattered fading to text (signature and most text relatively bold), couple contemporary ink stains at upper edge of first page. Np, September 1900
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"I can't work with the flu. I still have no news of the paintings and sketches which I forwarded to you. Last month I wrote to 'that man' [Georges Orsini] so that he could explain himself. . . . [W]rite immediately to him, in order to trace the packages. I was counting on that to make a year's living . . . .
"Chaudet: Impossible to tell you at this moment; I would have to do some research. In any case I wrote to him through the intermediary of the cafe owner who owed me, that on my account Chaudet must be about 2000 francs short but that I believed it was purely due to negligence--but what can you say to a dead man? . . .
"See you soon--I'm not in my right mind."
Published in Lettres de Gauguin à Daniel de Monfreid, Annie Joly-Segalen, ed. (Paris: Georges Falaize, 1950) 162.