Arii Matamoe (The Royal End)

Paul Gauguin

1892

Oil on coarse fabric, Oil

J. Paul Getty Museum

A profile portrait of a dark-skinned woman rests on a white pillow, with red and yellow flowers to her left. In the background, two figures stand in a room with bamboo and patterned textiles. A profile portrait of a dark-skinned woman rests on a white pillow, with red and yellow flowers to her left. In the background, two figures stand in a room with bamboo and patterned textiles. I have just finished a severed kanak [Pacific Islander] head, nicely arranged on a white cushion, in a palace of my invention and guarded by women also of my invention. --Paul Gauguin Writing to his friend Daniel de Monfreid, Paul Gauguin referenced in an almost offhand way this startling painting of a decapitated human head, which he made during his first stay in Polynesia in the early 1890s. Real events, from Tahitian King Pomare V's death so