{"id":109866,"date":"2025-10-29T07:02:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T07:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/109866\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T07:02:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T07:02:11","slug":"disputed-gauguin-self-portrait-is-the-real-deal-swiss-museum-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/109866\/","title":{"rendered":"Disputed Gauguin Self-Portrait Is the Real Deal, Swiss Museum Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tA Paul Gauguin<\/a> self-portrait whose authenticity has repeatedly come into question is a true work by the French painter, said its owner, Switzerland\u2019s Kunstmuseum Basel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe painting, which is commonly thought to be one of the artist\u2019s final ones before his death in 1903, is formally titled Portrait de l\u2019artiste par lui-m\u00eame and has been held by the Kunstmuseum Basel since 1945. <\/p>\n

\n\tEven before the painting entered the storied museum\u2019s holdings, however, its authenticity was already being scrutinized. According to the Kunstmuseum Basel, concerns about its attribution were raised as early as 1924, when the painting appeared at auction. When it was shown four years later, in 1928, at the Kunsthalle Basel, it was labeled a \u201cmutmassliches Selbstportr\u00e4t,\u201d or a \u201cputative self-portrait,\u201d the Kunstmuseum said.<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"A<\/p>\n

\n\tFabrice Fourmanoir, whom Artnet News once described as an \u201camateur art sleuth,\u201d resurfaced this debate earlier this year. In an interview<\/a> with Le Quotidien de l\u2019Art, Fourmanoir claimed that the painting\u2019s true maker was Ky-Dong Nguyen Van Cam, a friend of Gauguin who had produced the work after that artist\u2019s death. The work had already been off view by the time that article ran.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Kunstmuseum Basel told Artnet News that it took Fourmanoir\u2019s claims \u201cvery seriously\u201d and promised an investigation. Now, the museum has done so\u2014and revealed the results.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a release<\/a> on Tuesday, the museum said it sent off tiny bits of the painting to a laboratory at the Bern Academy of the Arts for analysis. The painting also underwent radiography, infrared reflectography, and other scans.<\/p>\n

\n\tThese scans revealed that the work\u2019s pigments were available roughly around the time it was painted, suggesting that it was produced around the time of Gauguin\u2019s death. But the scans also revealed a twist: \u201cthe findings also revealed that the sitter\u2019s face\u2014specifically, the areas of the forehead, eyes, nose, chin beard, and throat\u2014was later revised by overpainting,\u201d the Kunstmuseum Basel\u2019s release said. <\/p>\n

\n\tPerhaps that overpainting really was done by Nguyen Van Cam, the museum said, but the scans were \u201cinconclusive\u201d when it came to attribution on that front. The overpainting may have been executed between 1918 and 1926.<\/p>\n

\n\tStill, the museum was definitive in one regard: \u201cThere is no indication of an intentional forgery.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe portrait is listed as a bona fide Gauguin in a catalogue raisonn\u00e9 compiled by the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, which worked with the Kunstmuseum Basel on its research. It has now returned to view at the Swiss institution.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"A<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tPaul Gauguin, Portrait de l\u2019artiste par lui-m\u00eame, 1903.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto Max Ehrengruber\/Kunstmuseum Basel<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Paul Gauguin self-portrait whose authenticity has repeatedly come into question is a true work by the French…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60,66241,34872],"class_list":{"0":"post-109866","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-kunstmuseum-basel","17":"tag-paul-gauguin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}