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Merahi metua no Tehamana (Tehamana Has Many Parents or The Ancestors of Tehamana)

A young girl with medium skin wears a striking dress of black and white stripes with a short lace collar. Behind her is backdrop featuring symbols and native figures. Mangos sit beside her.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • A young girl with medium skin wears a striking dress of black and white stripes with a short lace collar. Behind her is backdrop featuring symbols and native figures. Mangos sit beside her.

Date:

1893

Artist:

Paul Gauguin
French, 1848-1903

About this artwork

In this portrait, the 13-year-old Tahitian girl named Tehamana appears stoic, shoulders squared and gaze unflinching. She wears a missionary dress and wields a Samoan fan as white flowers tumble from her hair. The ripe mango beside her alludes to fertility. In the background, Gauguin combined various non-European emblems—glyphs derived from an Easter Island tablet and a female deity inspired by Polynesian and Hindu sources—to build a generic sense of foreigness and mystery, transforming Tehamana into the embodiment of his own desire.

Status

On View, Gallery 247

Department

Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist

Paul Gauguin

Title

Merahi metua no Tehamana (Tehamana Has Many Parents or The Ancestors of Tehamana)

Place

France (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1893

Medium

Oil on jute canvas

Inscriptions

Signed lower center: P. Gauguin. / 93 Inscribed lower left: MERAHI METUA NO / TEHAMANA

Dimensions

75 × 53 cm (29 1/2 × 20 7/8 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Deering McCormick

Reference Number

1980.613

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/60812/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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