![Paul Gauguin – Contes barbares [1902] – Essen, Museum Folkwang](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54278534602_c363a61e72_m.jpg)
Contes barbares; two young Tahitian women and a fairytale-devil (probably an exaggerated likeness of painter Meyer de Haan). Inv. G 54
Fascinated by Tohotaua's appearance, Gauguin once again had the young woman sit as his model. In what is perhaps his most beautiful and mysterious painting, the ‘Contes Barbares’ from 1902, she looks out at us again: We recognise her in the figure kneeling in the foreground with the orange-red glowing hair.
Present and past come together in this painting, animated by the artist's clearly recognisable longing for death. The depiction of his friend Jacob Meyer de Haan, who died in 1895 and whom he had met in Le Pouldu in Breton in 1889, refers in particular to the past. There, Gauguin created a portrait of de Haan with the memorable title ‘Nirvana’. 13 years later
Gauguin repeated this diabolical-looking portrait of his artist friend in the middle of a South Sea landscape. The white clouds of smoke look like clouds drifting away after a cleansing rain shower, the fruit like an offering, and the lilies are an old symbol for the simultaneous proclamation of life and death.
In October 1903, five paintings by Paul Gauguin arrived in Hagen, including the Contes Barbares. In his confirmation of receipt, Osthaus complained about the high prices, whereupon Ambroise Vollard, Gauguin's art dealer of many years, pointed out that he had not been able to maintain the prices of the previous summer, as the artist had just died. For this reason, Karl Ernst Osthaus initially hesitated to acquire this important work in 1904 together with other paintings by the Frenchman.
