Le Joueur Schneklud

Gauguin painted this in 1894, back in Paris between his two long stays in Tahiti and short of money as usual. The sitter is Fritz Schneklud, a professional cellist and a friend, shown bent over his instrument with his eyes closed, lost in the sound. Gauguin gave the picture a Tahitian word in its title, Upaupa, the name of a dance and song he had heard on the island, as if to carry that music back into a Paris drawing room. For years people wondered whether the brooding, bearded player was really Gauguin in disguise, since the resemblance is so strong. Only around 2000 did a photograph of Schneklud surface, showing the same nose and beard and settling the matter.