Gaugins, with a difference

Many art collectors would give their eye teeth for a painting by Paul Gauguin – but how much would they give for his teeth?

Four rotten molars, which may have belonged to the French Post-Impressionist, have been found by archaeologists at the bottom of a well that the painter built on the remote island of Hiva Oa, on the Marquese islands in the Pacific Ocean.

According to the Gauguin specialist Caroline Boyle-Turner, there is strong possibility that the teeth belonged to the quarrelsome, syphilitic painter.

They almost certainly came from a European mouth, she says, because they are severely decayed. Marquese islanders of a century ago did not eat sugar and their teeth did not decay. The well, dug beside a hut used by Gauguin, was used to dump debris from his home but was sealed just after his death.

The well was actually excavated a full seven years ago, but it's taken a while for a full accounting of its contents.

Other odds and ends from the painter's home found 9ft down the well include a New Zealand beer bottle, five broken plates from Brittany, smashed perfume bottles, orange and ochre minerals which are presumed to be hand-made paints, a makeshift artist's palette and -- most intriguingly -- an empty Bovril jar.

This suggests that Gauguin,an enfant terrible all his life, remained a rebel to the end. He was probably the only Frenchman ever to have liked Bovril.

Full story here.

Posted by David on December 2, 2007 1:28 PM