Brief Report

This landscape, Manuring the Fields, formerly wrongly interpreted as Gathering in the Hay, dates from Paul Gauguin's months in Rouen in 1884 [Wildenstein 1964, cat. no. 124; Wildenstein 2001, cat. no. 117]. Seven pictures dating from this period can be proved to have been delivered to the Durand-Ruel gallery in April 1884, being assigned the lot numbers 4274-4280 [Wildenstein 2001, p. 136]. That the present picture was one of them was hitherto merely presumed by Wildenstein, but it has now been confirmed by a sticker verso with the handwritten number 4274 (fig. 2). Gauguin chose an extremely finely woven canvas in the standard F20 (73.0 x 60.0 cm) size with a commercial cream ground for the motif (figs 2, 7). A format stencil verso is evidence of the use of a ready-made pre-stretched canvas, although we have no dealer's mark. The use of commercial grounds by Gauguin has been demonstrated for his early period in the 1870s; only in the following decade did he come to prefer coarse canvases which he primed himself [Christensen 1993, p. 65]. Traces of composition planning can also be discerned on this picture: microscopic inspection reveals along the borders of the areas of colour fine black particles which are due to a sketchy underdrawing in charcoal(?) and got mixed into the wet paint-layer as the paint was applied (fig. 8). The painting took up at least two working sessions. The underdrawing was followed by an underpainting, at first in semi-transparent paint at first, over which the succeeding layers were applied wet-ondry, as can be seen in particular with the house in the right foreground (fig. 10). As he painted, Gauguin oriented himself by what he had set out in the drawing, as unpainted areas demonstrate; this is particularly easy to see in transmitted light (fig. 9). The allegedly subdued coloration shows on closer inspection the use of intensive hues which were subsequently largely covered over. The blue of the roofs is one example here. However, the fact that the paint does not cover everything each time allows these bright hues to play their part in the total colour effect (fig. 12). The use of viscous paint means the brushwork is visible throughout. One pentimento is represented by the figure by the wheelbarrow in the centre-right foreground, which was added over paint which had already dried (fig. 11). When the painting was restored at some time in the past, a coat of varnish was removed, leaving a uniformly matt surface (figs 3, 13).

Paul Gauguin
Manuring the Fields, 1884, oil on canvas, 59.5 x 73.5 cm, WRM Dep. FC 663

Paul Gauguin

born on 7 June 1848 in Paris,
died on 8 May 1903 in Atuona on the Marquesas Islands

Brief report with complete data as downloadable pdf-file

Further illustrations:

Fig. 02

Verso with indication of size and historic inscription by the Durand-Ruel gallery


Fig. 03

Raking light


Fig. 04

Transmitted light


Fig. 05

UV fluorescence


Fig. 06

Details, signature in incident light (top) and under UV


Fig. 07

Cream ground on the turnover edge; top edge shows remains of varnish, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 08

Characoal particles from the underdrawing (arrows), microscopic photographs (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 09

Details in incident and transmitted light, areas left unpainted during the lay-in in colour of the depiction of the figure are rendered visible


Fig. 10

In one place where overlying paint was not applied, a thin underlying layer can be discerned, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 11

Details in incident and transmitted light; here the paint cover is complete, indicating that this figure was added later by Gauguin


Fig. 12

Underlying impasto blue paint-layers in the region of the house, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 13

Remains of varnish, left behind after a coat of varnish was removed in the past, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)