“How to describe these strange, barbaric, savage ceramics in which, sublime potter, he has kneaded more soul than clay?”
Albert Aurier, 1891

Gauguin was introduced to the world of ceramics in 1886 by the master potter Ernest Chaplet. The medium became an increasingly important part of Gauguin’s artistry, as it allowed him to experiment and have a playful freedom about his work. Inspired by his time in Brittany, he went against the strictures of ‘fine art’, instead delving into a world of the ‘grotesque’ and ‘exotic’.

Peruvian ceramics had a particularly strong influence on his work. For the first seven years of his life Gauguin lived in Peru and later, through the collections of his mother and of his guardian Arosa, he became familiar with ancient Peruvian art. With its disproportionate forms and transformation of figures into vessels, this use of form led to Gauguin’s stoneware to be considered as ‘primitive’ by some. In ‘Triple pot à deux anses’ the unconventional shape and creatures are far removed from Western artistic tradition. Both whimsical and highly detailed, Gauguin paints, incises and layers the clay to create an object of beauty.


Choosing to sculpt the clay by hand without using a potter’s wheel, there is an intensity to Gauguin’s ceramics in which one feels his physical presence. As in ‘Triple pot à deux anses’ the unfinished appearance and restricted colour palette of the work was itself decorative, along with finger marks and a deliberately unfinished look which was anathema to most sculptors of the time. For Gauguin, clay was not a simple, ordinary, material, but one that held cultural significance, leading him to be respectful of its natural tone.

Gauguin created around a hundred ceramics, but only roughly six five have survived. Many are in museums including Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (‘Vessel with Women and Goats’, c.1887-89), Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza (‘Head of a Young Girl’, 1893-4) and Art Institute of Chicago (‘Vase in the Form of a Tropical Plant with Bird and Deity’, 1887-8).

‘Triple pot à deux anses’ was originally owned by George-Daniel de Monfriend, who was not only one of the first patrons of Gauguin’s work but also had the largest collection of his ceramics. Monfriend was a great supporter of Gauguin and wrote a biography on the artist.