The Black Pigs

Gauguin landed at Papeete on 9 June 1891. Three days later Pomare V, the last king of Tahiti, died, and Gauguin watched the funeral. He had sailed for an older Polynesia and stepped ashore in a French colony with a governor, missionaries and colonial officials. He left the capital for the district of Mataiea and painted this there in his first year, on coarse jute sacking rather than proper artist's canvas. Behind the hut stands a carved figure. The museum in Budapest points out that it may well be one of Gauguin's own carvings, since very few ancient ones were still to be found on the island in 1891. The black pigs themselves come from drawings in the sketchbook he was keeping that year.