A Head of Man with Hat, Seen from Behind; A Standing Woman [recto]

The sheet presents a male head, viewed from the rear and capped with a hat, alongside a standing female figure. The juxtaposition of the concealed male profile and the upright woman creates a quiet tension, inviting contemplation of presence versus absence and hinting at Gauguin’s early interest in the psychological undercurrents of everyday scenes.

Gauguin employs a restrained palette of earth tones, allowing the crayon and graphite to define volume while the pen and brown ink delineate contour and texture. The drawing’s linear economy and emphasis on silhouette reflect a move away from the fleeting light of Impressionism toward the more abstracted, symbolic approach that would later characterize his mature work.

Created between 1884 and 1888, the piece belongs to Gauguin’s formative years before his travels to Tahiti. It remained in private collections for much of the 20th century before entering a museum holding focused on 19th‑century French drawings, where it serves as an illustration of the artist’s transition from academic training to his own avant‑garde idiom.