Gauguin work sells for rumoured $300 million

Paul Gauguin Nafea FaaIpoipo 1892 detail

The New York Times has reported that the Paul Gauguin painting Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?) was sold to a Qatari buyer for $300 million.

The painting was sold by Rudolf Staechelin, a former Sotheby’s executive and art collector who now lives in Switzerland. It is rumoured that the buyer of the 1892 oil painting was Qatar’s museums, who were also reported to have paid more than $250 million for Cezanne’s The Card Players four years ago. The piece had previously been on loan to the Kunstmuseum in Basel for a 50-year period.

To The New York Times, the art advisor Todd Levin, said about the piece: “I heard that this painting was in play late last year”, adding that “the price quoted to me at that time was in the high $200 millions, close to $300 million.” The painting depicts two Tahitian girls with a Polynesian landscape in the background, and was painted during the period when the artist lived on the island.