Femme à la mangue

The woman holding a mango is usually identified as Teha'amana, the young Tahitian who lived with Gauguin during his first stay on the island in 1892. Look at her dress. It is a stiff, high-necked pink gown, the 'mission dress' that Christian missionaries had pressed on Tahitian women to cover them, and Gauguin sets its imported primness against the figure he wanted to paint as timeless and natural. He handled the flat, glowing colours almost like a fresco. When he showed his Tahitian pictures back in Paris the next year, most baffled the critics, but this one found a sharp-eyed buyer: the painter Edgar Degas, who admired Gauguin and kept it. It reached Baltimore through Etta and Claribel Cone, two sisters who collected modern art early.