Tahitian Women Bathing

• Paul Gauguin (1848–1903)
• 1892
• Oil on paper laid down on canvas
• Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
• (1975.1.179)

Paul Gauguin painted this work during his first two-year stay in Tahiti, where he escaped the bustle of Paris for a romanticized vision of a mysterious South Pacific island. The composition suggests a voyeuristic glimpse of bathing women: at the center, one stands with her back turned, pulling her hair off her neck, while a pareu (traditional wrap) has fallen at her feet. Their exotic brown skin, painted in a flat, planar manner without depth, contrasts vividly with the dark blue of the river landscape.