GAUGUIN Paul (1848-1903) peintre.

Lot 8
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Estimation :
2000 - 2500 EUR
Result with fees
Result : 4 349EUR
GAUGUIN Paul (1848-1903) peintre.
Autograph letter (minute) addressed to Léonce BRAULT. S.l., [2? April 1903]. 2 folio pages in pencil on one sheet (margins torn and faded). Gauguin has just been convicted and explains the case to his lawyer and friend, Léonce Brault, with a view to his defence, less than a month before his death. [Gauguin had denounced to the administrator of the Marquesas the gendarme Guichenay of Tahuata who was taking bribes from American whalers; the latter instructed his colleague in Ivaoa to sue Gauguin for "defamation of a gendarme in the exercise of his duties"; Gauguin was sentenced on March 31, 1903 to three months in prison and a fine of 55 francs, in application of the law on the press; he immediately entrusted his friend, the Tahitian lawyer Léonce Brault (1858-1933), with his defense, but he died on May 8.] "At the beginning of February I sent a letter to the Adm[inistrate] of the Marquesas asking him to investigate the goods landed by the gendarme of Tavata from the whaling ships in order to know if they were in order, otherwise it would be a scandalous conduct. Everyone here knows that the whaling captains have landed a great deal of goods, saying that the constable had had his paw greased enough. [...] What I wanted to do was to demand an investigation, as is my right, especially since some natives have been convicted for having received soap instead of money, etc., and even as payment for prostitution. The administrator, instead of making the inquiry, asked the gendarme to make good his complaint; and Gauguin then wrote back to the administrator, "declaring that the inquiry not having been ordered and made, I considered the gendarme to be a perfect honest man", and withdrawing his complaint... "Thereupon, in the course of February, the brigadier, a coarse character, threatened me with many things, including suing me for defamation of the gendarmerie. He informed the administrator of these threats, but was sued: "I was condemned. I am appealing"; he sends the documents in the file to Brault, for this "case which you have to examine carefully to defend it when the time comes. [You will read a most curious file". He stressed that the law of July 1881 "invoked by the judge and the summons is a press law. Is a letter addressed to an administrator in the governor's office considered to be a printed document or words that defame the public?" In the margin, a column of small notes in ink, listing 14 paintings: still lifes, "philosopher", "2 women", "woman child", "2 horses", "Adam Eve", "large canvas", "Mataia landscape", "nun", "Mataia with horse", "Vahine matava". EXHIBITION The friendships of the painter Georges-Daniel de Monfreid and his relics of Gauguin (Jean Loize, 1951, n° 349).
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