2023: Acquisition private collection, Zurich

2001: Transfer private collection, Düsseldorf

1979: Purchased by private collectors from a watch dealer, Zagreb

(?) 1979: Watch dealer in Zagreb purchases from a dealer in Belgrade, found in an old Manor house, Belgrade

1939: Private collection, Belgrade

1939: Private sale on the black market together with a (?) Monet, Belgrade

(?) 1937-1939: Gift from Ambroise Vollard to Erich Šlomović, Paris

(?) 1895-1903: sold to Ambroise Vollard for ca. 200 Francs, Paris / Estate / Georges-Alfred Chaudet, Paris / Gaston Lévy, Paris

This is precisely the manner in which Gauguin introduced Vaïtua in Noa Noa, entering his home in Papeete unannounced one night and imposing her company onto the artist. The passage about her deserves to be quoted as it reveals many details that suggest that the model for Gauguin’s painting 'Nue tahitienne assise avec fleur rouge' may possibly have been Vaïtua. Although his own words and texts are often overlooked or dismissed, they contain undeniable links to his artworks. The description of their encounter and subsequent intimate relations are so specific that one can almost visualize Gauguin’s own words as one views the painting. This was precisely the artist’s intention for his texts, that they simultaneously bring to mind his paintings and that the words come to life visually through his artworks, creating a harmonious union between two different yet intimately related art forms, a “total work of art,” so to speak.

"I had been sick for a few days, the remnants of bronchitis contracted during the previous winter in Paris, and quite lonely in Papeete: I had to be patient fore I would soon reach that forty-fifth kilometer!

Ia orana Gauguin

It was the princess who had entered my room. I was on the bed clad only in a simple sarong tied at my waist, not the sort of thing one should wear when receiving the company a beautiful woman. ‘I came to see you because you are sick,’ she said.

‘And you are?’

Vaïtua.

Vaïtua was a genuine princess, if of course there were any were left after the Europeans had exploited all of the country’s resources. She had arrived barefoot, with a flower behind her ear and clad in a black dress. She was still mourning the death of her uncle, King Pomare, who had recently passed. Her father was Tamatoa, who despite the European influence and official functions, never wanted to be anything other than a noble Maori, a colossal butcher of men and akin to a bull in rage during his bursts of anger. They claimed that Vaïtua greatly resembled her father.

Yvonne Muchitsch, Elpida Vouitsis from Paul Gauguin. 2 unknown paintings