Group of 11 woodcuts printed in black on warm cream Japan paper, 1893-94. Each signed "P. Gauguin" by Georges-Daniel de Monfried in ink, in the margins. Various sizes and conditions. Very good impressions.
These woodcuts were produced and printed by Gauguin's friend Georges-Daniel de Monfried (1856-1929), a fellow artist and art collector, after designs by Gauguin which were intended to illustrate his travel journel through Tahiti. When Gauguin died, unexpectedly, at the age of 54, in French Polynesia, the manuscript for his Tahitian journal became the center of a bitter publishing rights battle between his wife, Mette, and the Parisian publisher Edmond Sagot (see lot 112). The feud continued through World War I and Mette Gauguin's death in 1921, then the manuscript was eventually purchased and published in 1924 by Georges Cris, Paris.
These early proof impressions pre-date the publication and were personally printed by Georges-Daniel de Monfried in the early 1900s. Gauguin's original manuscript, which was discovered in his French Polynesia hut after his death in 1903, is now in the Louvre, Paris.
