The Getty Bought an ‘Exceedingly Rare’ Gauguin Sculpture for a Reported $5 Million. There’s Just One Problem: It’s Fake

A prized and rare sculpture by Paul Gauguin that was
acquired by the J. Paul Getty Museum for a reported $3 million to
$5 million has been deemed a fake.

The sculpture, titled Head with Horns, has been
reattributed by researchers to an unknown artist and pulled from
the museum’s permanent display. The institution acquired the work
in 2002 from Wildenstein & Company, the powerful
French-American art-dealing dynasty that is embroiled in a litany lawsuits.

Researchers made the change in attribution quietly last
December, and the work was noticeably absent from recent
Gauguin blockbusters at Ottawa’s National Gallery of Canada and the
National Gallery in London.

The prime pieces of evidence linking the work to Gauguin were
two photographs of the sculpture by the artist included in his
Tahitian travelogue, Noa Noa. A 2002 press release
from the Getty drawing attention to its resemblance to the artist
suggested that it may have been a symbolic self-portrait.

“Sculpture by Gauguin is exceedingly rare, and this intriguing
work stands out as a superb example,” Deborah Gribbon, then the
director of the J. Paul Getty Museum, said at the time of the
acquisition. “We feel especially fortunate to be able to display
Head with Horns, which will become a natural centerpiece
of our installation of symbolist art.”

After being bought by Getty, the piece circulated the world,
traveling to shows at Tate Modern in London, the National Gallery
of Art in Washington, DC, MoMA in New York, and the Museo delle
Culture in Milan.

But the sculpture was never signed by Gauguin, and his
photographs of it showed it atop a pedestal not carved in
any of how known styles. Originally dated to between 1895 and
1897, which lines up the artist’s time in Tahiti, it is now thought
to be from 1894, a time when Gauguin is known to have been in
France.

The work has long been questions by some experts. Shortly after
the Getty acquired it, Fabrice Fourmanoir, a collector
of 19th-century Tahitian photography, found a picture of the
sculpture by Jules Agostini captioned “Idole Marquisienne”
(Marquisian Idol), suggesting that Agostini thought the piece was
by an indigenous artist from the Marquesas Islands, then a part of
French Polynesia.

In Agostini’s photo album, Head with Horns is
shown next to a portrait of George Lagarde, a collector of
ethnographic art who may have been the owner of the sculpture. The
photographs both date to 1894.

The sculpture’s provenance was always a bit murky. It was
included in a show at the Fondation Maeght in 1997 after being
purchased, four years earlier, by Wildenstein & Company from a
private Swiss collector. The work was first attributed to Gauguin
by Daniel Wildenstein, the author of a Gauguin catalogue
raisonné focusing on the years 1873 to 1888. (Another volume,
covering the years 1888 to 1903, is due at the end of 2020. )

Artnet News asked the Wildenstein Plattner Institute if it will
amend the catalogue to acknowledge the new attribution
of Head With Horns, but did not hear back by press
time.

This would not be the first time that the Wildensteins have been
caught in a public controversy.

The French art-dealing family has been accused of evading taxes
in France, hiding missing or stolen artworks, and even of
trading artworks with the Nazis during World War II, all claims the
family denies.

The Getty is now researching the sandalwood sculpture and
its lacewood base to try to learn more about its origins. Some
Polynesian art experts say its devilish horns suggest the
iconography is not local, but comes from Christian and
European sources. Another theory, floated by Fourmanoir, is
that it was carved by a European tourist.

The post The Getty Bought an ‘Exceedingly Rare’ Gauguin
Sculpture for a Reported $5 Million. There’s Just One Problem: It’s
Fake appeared first on artnet News.