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Getty Lands a Morbid Gauguin

LA museum buys painting of decapitation scene after 8-year search

By Daniel Kibblesmith,  Newser User

Posted Mar 12, 2008 2:53 PM CDT
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(Newser) – The J. Paul Getty Museum has acquired an 1892 work by Paul Gauguin the Los Angeles institution's curator calls "the most famous painting by Gauguin that no one has seen," the Los Angeles Times reports. Arii Matamoe (The Royal End)—bought from a Swiss collector for an undisclosed sum—is one of the painter's most morbid Tahitian paintings, depicting a severed head on a pillow.

Gauguin painted Arii Matamoe on his first trip to Tahiti after abandoning his banking job in France. While the severed head may represent a Polynesian king who died around the time of the work, it also echoes earlier decapitations in Western art history, experts say, from Orpheus to John the Baptist.

Visitors walk in the gardens at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The museum has purchased Arii Matamoe (The Royal End), an 1892 painting by French master Paul Gauguin, which depicts the severed head of a Polynesian man on a pillow.
Visitors walk in the gardens at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The museum has purchased "Arii Matamoe (The Royal End)," an 1892 painting by French master Paul Gauguin, which depicts the severed...   (Associated Press)
The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The museum has purchased Arii Matamoe (The Royal End), an 1892 painting by French master Paul Gauguin, which depicts the severed head of a Polynesian man on a pillow.
The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The museum has purchased "Arii Matamoe (The Royal End)," an 1892 painting by French master Paul Gauguin, which depicts the severed head of a Polynesian man on...   ((c) Marcin Wichary)
Gauguin's painting
Gauguin's painting   (J. Paul Getty Trust)
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Painting has only been exhibited once in 60 years
New York Times

 
art market • art • Los Angeles • J. Paul Getty Museum • Paul Gauguin • Tahiti • Arii Matamoe • The Royal End

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