Gauguin, Van Gogh, and the Cleopatra Pot: A Tale of Art and Gifts

Explore the story of Gauguin's Cleopatra Pot and his complex relationship with Van Gogh, involving art exchanges, hidden motives, and the iconic Sunflowers. Unveiling the pot's journey and symbolism.

Two days after Gauguin joined Van Gogh at the Yellow Home in Arles in October 1888 he contacted his Parisian artist close friend Émile Schuffenecker: “We are here in a little, rather enchanting little residence, and I would like to have some pottery to look at”. Schuffenecker, who was looking after a few of Gauguin’s impacts, sent him 2 ceramics, including the requested Cleopatra Pot.

Gauguin’s Cleopatra Pot: A Gift’s Tale

Paul Gauguin is renowned for his innovative paints, however he also produced some remarkably vibrant and imaginative ceramics. One of these, the Cleopatra Pot (winter months 1887-88), rapidly came to be connected to Vincent van Gogh and his sibling Theo– and the fabled Sunflowers.

Adventures with Van Gogh is a regular blog by Martin Bailey, The Art Paper’s enduring contributor and professional on the Dutch painter. Released on Fridays, tales range from newsy products about this most interesting artist, to scholarly pieces based on precise examinations and discoveries.

Van Gogh’s Ear Incident and Gauguin’s Departure

2 months later came the terrible incident in which Van Gogh cut his ear, throughout the evening of 23 December 1888. By now relations between him and Gauguin had actually degraded. On Xmas Day, Vincent’s bro Theo arrived by train from Paris to visit him in hospital, which night Theo and Gauguin returned to Paris with each other.

Along with the Cleopatra Pot, Gauguin likewise offered Theo an even more vital job, the photo Vincent van Gogh Paint Sunflowers (December 1888). In Van Gogh’s letter to Gauguin of 21 January 1889 he composed that he had actually listened to (from Theo) that his buddy would certainly such as “a canvas of mine, the sunflowers with a yellow background”. The Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles is concerning to open an event qualified To Vincent, A Wintertime’s Tale (30 November-21 April 2026), featuring musicians influenced by Van Gogh’s letters. Two Van Gogh paints are coming from Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum: Head of a Female (December 1885) and Sunflowers Gone to Seed (August-September 1887). My Friend Van Gogh/Emile Bernard offers the very first English translation of Bernard’s works on Van Gogh (David Zwirner Books 2023, UKand US).

Sunflowers and the Alluring Cleopatra

The Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles will open up an exhibition qualified To Vincent, A Winter season’s Story (30 November-21 April 2026), featuring artists motivated by Van Gogh’s letters. These include Rineke Dijkstra, Gustave Fayet, Anselm Kiefer and Wolfgang Tillmans. Two Van Gogh paints are coming from Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Gallery: Head of a Lady (December 1885) and Sunflowers Gone to Seed (August-September 1887). Also on program will certainly be Van Gogh’s letter to Gauguin of 21 January 1889, on finance from the Musée Réattu in Arles.

Martin Bailey is a leading Van Gogh specialist and unique reporter for The Art Newspaper. He has actually curated exhibitions at the Barbican Art Gallery, Compton Verney/National Gallery of Scotland and Tate Britain.

Martin has composed a number of bestselling publications on Van Gogh’s years in France: The Sunflowers Are Mine: The Tale of Van Gogh’s Masterpiece (Frances Lincoln 2013, UK and US), Workshop of the South: Van Gogh in Provence (Frances Lincoln 2016, UK and US), Starry Night: Van Gogh at the Asylum (White Lion Posting 2018, UK and United States) and Van Gogh’s Ending: Auvers and the Musician’s Surge to Popularity (Frances Lincoln 2021, UK and United States). The Sunflowers are Mine (2024, UK and US) and Van Gogh’s Finale (2024, UK and United States) are likewise currently available in an extra compact paperback style.

The front of Gauguin’s Cleopatra Pot, with a lying number representing the Egyptian queen, behind her (on the right side) a ne’er-do-well and with the PGo signature Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation).

The Cleopatra Pot is presently on display screen in a Van Gogh Museum touring event in Japan, now at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Gallery (until 1 December) and then mosting likely to the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art (3 January– 23 March 2026) in Nagoya. Thinking about Japan’s fantastic custom of porcelains, Gauguin’s imaginative pot will certainly be much valued there.

Remove from Van Gogh’s letter to Gauguin, 21 January 1889: “You talk to me in your letter about a canvas of mine, the sunflowers with a yellow background– to claim that it would give you some satisfaction to get it. If [I don’t believe that you have actually made a bad choice– Georges] Jeannin has the peony, [Ernest] Quost the hollyhock, I undoubtedly, before others, have taken the sunflower.” Musée Réattu, Arles; picture Hervé Hôte.

In addition to the Cleopatra Pot, Gauguin also offered Theo a lot more vital job, the picture Vincent van Gogh Painting Sunflowers (December 1888). As Van der Hoeven describes, the two gifts might have been made to gaming console Theo or “out of feelings of guilt”, since Gauguin had figured in the situations that brought about Vincent’s mutilation of his ear. Gauguin likewise wanted to go on the right side of Theo, that was after that his dealer and had actually simply installed an event of his work.

The fascinating story of the Cleopatra Pot has been exposed by Joost van der Hoeven, a researcher at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam– and it has simply gone on the internet. Gauguin had actually crafted the glazed ceramic pot in the winter of 1887-88, along with a team of porcelains that he made in the Paris workshop of Ernest Chaplet.

Gauguin was usually wily in his transactions with friends, and one believes that his present of Vincent van Gogh Paint Sunflowers and the Cleopatra Pot was encouraged by a need to get the Sunflowers. If that was certainly his intention, it failed, since it seems that Gauguin never owned one of the yellow Sunflowers.

The figure of the reclining Cleopatra was taken straight from a painting by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Hope (1871-72), which Van Gogh and Gauguin had both appreciated when it was presented in Paris in November 1887. Gauguin then transformed the lady in Hope into an allegory of seduction.

The Pot’s Symbolism and Gauguin’s Intentions

Soon later on Gauguin provided the Cleopatra Pot to Theo, that was an art dealership in Paris, partially to thank him for having actually mounted an exhibition of his job a couple of weeks previously. On Theo’s death in 1891, the ceramic stayed with his widow Jo Bonger.

In the winter months of 1925-26, the pot shows up in a photograph of Jo’s bedroom, on the piano and having a lot of flowers or turfs. Suitably, 3 of the photos holding on the wall surface behind are flower study in still lives by Adolphe Monticelli and Georges Jeannin, musicians whom Van Gogh appreciated and accumulated.

Journey to Theo van Gogh

Gauguin probably showed up at Theo’s house birthing his 2 presents, the Cleopatra Pot and Vincent van Gogh Paint Sunflowers. Theo may after that have actually felt he needs to reciprocate, which he did by providing the much more modest lithograph.

The freshly developed link in between the presents offers an interesting understanding into Gauguin’s attempt to obtain among Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. In Van Gogh’s letter to Gauguin of 21 January 1889 he created that he had actually listened to (from Theo) that his buddy would certainly such as “a canvas of mine, the sunflowers with a yellow background”. (By coincidence, this letter is taking place display screen in Arles, see Various other Van Gogh News, listed below).

Jo had passed away in September 1925 and the apartment or condo will be cleared. Above the piano’s shut key-board is a painting of her (beside a picture of her young grandson, Theodoor), most likely placed there in memory on the tool that she would never ever play again.

His other current publications include Living with Vincent van Gogh: The Houses & Landscapes that formed the Artist (White Lion Posting 2019, UK and United States), which provides a review of the artist’s life. The Illustrated Provence Letters of Van Gogh has actually been reissued (Batsford 2021, UK and US). My Buddy Van Gogh/Emile Bernard gives the very first English translation of Bernard’s works on Van Gogh (David Zwirner Books 2023, UKand US).

On the pot’s front is a naked figure standing for the fabulous Egyptian queen Cleopatra. Van der Hoeven points out that in the 19th century she was considered “a dazzling icon of beauty, seduction and need”. Her nude body provocatively rests near the rear of a ne’er-do-well (the glaze of its head has now chipped off), an animal that back then could be seen as symbolizing sin. Paul Gauguin authorized the front “PGo”, a monogram that in French sounds like “pego”, a slang word for penis. The reverse of the pot is embellished with two pigs, which Gauguin considered as standing for lust.

Considering that Van der Hoeven’s account was uploaded, we have actually been able to establish when the 2 gifts were probably provided to Theo. In a letter from Gauguin to Vincent, dated in between 8 and 16 January 1889, he states that he had actually simply gone to Theo. This was Van Gogh’s lithograph of The Potato Eaters (April 1885).