Paul Gauguin Art Valuation: Determine Your Artwork's Market Value

The ArtValue engine analyses auction results (Drouot, Christie's, Sotheby's, Artcurial), gallery prices and online marketplaces to deliver a personalised estimate.

What drives the value of a work by Paul Gauguin

Tahitian and Breton oil paintings — Unique oils on canvas or jute from the Pont-Aven, Martinique, Tahiti and Marquesas campaigns are the top of the market and are traded almost exclusively through specialist departments, with buyers expecting inclusion in the Wildenstein catalogue raisonné of the paintings. Early Impressionist-period canvases by Gauguin also sell well but sit clearly below the Polynesian figure subjects.

Carved wood and ceramic works — Hand-carved wooden reliefs, tikis and walking sticks, and the stoneware vessels and figures modelled in the 1880s in collaboration with the ceramist Ernest Chaplet, are extremely scarce and command strong prices when documented. Because this area has been heavily forged, the market values exhibition and literature references above visual quality alone.

Monotypes, drawings, pastels — Autograph works on paper, including the traced monotypes ('oil transfer' drawings) of the Tahitian and Marquesan years, pastels, watercolours and sketchbook leaves, form the most active middle tier. Sheets with recognised Tahitian motifs or preparatory links to known paintings are treated far more seriously than loose academic studies.

Lifetime prints and woodcuts — The zincographs of the Volpini suite printed on bright yellow paper and the Noa Noa woodcuts and related blocks printed in the 1890s are the collectable print category, catalogued in the Guérin reference for the graphic work. Impressions printed by the artist or under his supervision, on the original papers, are worth substantially more than later pulls.

Posthumous and later print editions — Woodcuts pulled after the artist's death from surviving blocks, notably the editions organised by his son Pola Gauguin in Copenhagen in the 1920s, circulate widely and are sold as posthumous impressions. They have a real but modest value and must never be described simply as Gauguin prints without that qualification.

Gauguin most often signed in paint at a lower corner as 'P. Gauguin', frequently followed by a two-digit year, and used the compressed monogram 'PGO' on woodblocks, ceramics and some drawings; many Tahitian canvases also carry a Tahitian title brushed onto the picture surface itself, which is part of the work rather than a later addition. Numerous authentic drawings, monotypes and sketchbook pages are unsigned, so absence of a signature is not by itself disqualifying. For paintings, the accepted point of reference is the Wildenstein catalogue raisonné, while the graphic work is normally cited by its Guérin number; there is no lifetime estate stamp in general use, and modern hand-signatures added in pencil on posthumous woodcuts are a warning sign.

• Photomechanical and offset reproductions of famous Tahitian compositions, often taken from the illustrated Noa Noa publications or from exhibition catalogues, betray themselves under magnification by a regular dot or rosette screen absent from woodcut and zincograph impressions.
• Posthumous woodcuts pulled from the original blocks in the 1920s are genuine impressions but not lifetime works, and are recognised by fresh-looking twentieth-century paper, uniform heavy inking and the carved 'PGO' in the block rather than a hand signature.
• Twentieth-century exhibition posters and 'after Gauguin' colour lithographs for museum retrospectives are frequently framed and sold as originals, though printed titles, museum names, venue text or trimmed lettering along an edge usually remain visible.
• Fake Breton and Tahitian oils are common and typically show machine-woven modern canvas on stapled stretchers, glossy quick-drying paint and an over-legible signature, whereas Gauguin often painted thinly and matte on coarse absorbent jute or sackcloth.

• Polynesian subjects of the 1890s, especially seated or standing female figures with landscape and symbolic motifs, rank highest, while Rouen, Copenhagen and early Paris landscapes of the Impressionist years sit well below them.
• Synthetist Brittany works with flat colour zones and spiritual or folkloric content are valued above naturalistic pieces from the same stay, and Martinique subjects are prized for their rarity.
• Continuous provenance matters unusually much here, particularly early ownership through Vollard or the Danish circle of the artist's wife's family, inclusion in the standard catalogues and a documented exhibition history free of unexplained wartime gaps.
• Condition problems typical of the medium weigh heavily: flaking and abrasion on thinly painted absorbent jute, past overcleaning of matte surfaces, and light-faded yellow Volpini sheets or foxed, trimmed print margins all reduce value.

• Photograph the signature or 'PGO' monogram and any Tahitian inscription in raking light and in close-up, so that brushwork or block carving can be distinguished from printed lettering.
• Photograph the entire reverse: canvas weave and any jute or sackcloth texture, stretcher construction, wax or collection stamps, old labels, inventory numbers and handwritten inscriptions.
• For prints and works on paper, record the sheet dimensions, any pencil annotations or numbering, the paper colour and texture, watermarks seen against the light, and a magnified detail of an inked area.

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