A self-portrait long attributed to Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) has been definitively authenticated by experts after nearly 100 years of controversy surrounding its legitimacy. The painting, titled "Portrait of the Artist by Himself" and housed at the Kunstmuseum Basel in Switzerland, has been confirmed as genuine following extensive scientific analysis and examination by the Gauguin Committee of the Wildenstein Plattner Institute in Paris.
The authentication comes as another forgotten masterpiece from Gauguin's Breton period is set to ignite the art market on December 9th. The Basel museum launched a comprehensive investigation into the self-portrait's attribution in collaboration with the Academy of Arts in Bern and the Gauguin Committee, seeking to confirm whether this indeed represents the post-impressionist master's final self-portrait before his death in 1903.
The painting's authenticity has been questioned since the 1920s, creating one of the art world's most enduring attribution mysteries. When the self-portrait first appeared at auction in 1924, it failed to find a buyer due to widespread suspicion about its origins. Four years later, in 1928, it was displayed at the Kunsthalle Basel under the cautious title "mutmassliches Selbstporträt" – literally meaning "presumed self-portrait."
When the work entered the Kunstmuseum Basel's collection through a bequest in 1945, the museum's annual acquisition report noted that former director Georg Schmidt had already conducted meticulous studies in response to persistent questions about the painting's authenticity. The doubts continued to linger for decades, casting a shadow over what could be Gauguin's final artistic statement.
The controversy intensified in March 2025 when collector and Gauguin specialist Fabrice Fourmanoir alerted the museum to possible dating inconsistencies, suggesting the canvas might be a forgery. Fourmanoir, who had previously challenged the authenticity of two other Gauguin paintings in 2020 – "The Invocation" at the National Gallery of Art in Washington and "Women with a White Horse" at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston – argued that paintings attributed to the master from 1903 were fabrications.
According to Fourmanoir's theory, Gauguin's severely deteriorated health in 1903 (he died on May 8, 1903, in Atuona in the Marquesas Islands) would not have permitted him to create new works during that period. The specialist proposed that the work had been painted from a photograph of Gauguin by his friend and caregiver Ky Dong, whose real name was Nguyen Van Cam. This Vietnamese nurse and close friend of Gauguin was the first known owner of the self-portrait.
Faced with these serious allegations, the Kunstmuseum Basel made the unprecedented decision to remove the painting from display and subject it to extensive scientific analysis. Multiple departments within the museum were mobilized to investigate the work's provenance, conservation history, and material composition. The investigation employed numerous examination techniques including microscopic study, infrared reflectography, and radiography over several months.
The scientific analysis revealed both confirming and puzzling evidence. Complementary studies focused on the pigments and binding agents in the preparatory and paint layers to determine their components. Samples were extracted and sent to the laboratory at the Academy of Arts in Bern, which compared the analytical results with those from other authenticated works from Gauguin's final creative period around 1900. The materials used were found to be remarkably similar to those in confirmed Gauguin works from the same era.
However, the investigation led to an unexpected discovery that added another layer to the mystery. Certain areas of the painter's face showed evidence of later retouching on the forehead, eyes, chin beard, nose, and neck. Analysis of these overpainted areas revealed that the paint used was different from the original and, crucially, contained titanium white – a pigment that only became widely used by artists starting in 1918.
A photograph of the self-portrait exhibited in 1926 at the Kunstmuseum Basel shows that the work already appeared in its current state at that time. This evidence allows researchers to date the retouching to sometime between 1918 and 1926. The museum hypothesizes that these modifications were made to prepare the canvas for sale, though the exact circumstances and motivations remain unclear.
The Kunstmuseum Basel also consulted the Gauguin Committee of the Wildenstein Plattner Institute in Paris, which is responsible for the artist's catalogue raisonné. After examining the painting, the experts definitively confirmed the attribution of the canvas to Paul Gauguin. The work is listed in the catalogue under the name "Self-Portrait with Glasses" and will continue to be displayed at the Kunstmuseum Basel as part of the painter's late corpus on the first floor in room 30.
Despite this official authentication, Fabrice Fourmanoir remains unconvinced that the matter is settled. According to the collector, the museum's analysis does not provide truly satisfactory answers, noting that "no comparative stylistic and technical study based on X-ray, UV, or reflectography images" was conducted. "It's surprising because that's always where you start for authentication," he explained.
Fourmanoir criticizes what he sees as a lack of transparency regarding the public data used for pigment comparison and argues that only a comparison with Gauguin's actual palette (dating from 1848 to 1903) preserved at the Musée d'Orsay would be relevant. In his view, the presence of titanium white actually supports the theory of a fake self-portrait that someone tried to improve for sale: "If it were an authentic Gauguin of great value, why would anyone risk altering it with new modifications? That could have made it unsellable."
According to Fourmanoir's alternative narrative, "Ky Dong painted an initial sketch of the portrait when he was Gauguin's student, then improved it years later with these flat retouches before selling it to Louis Grelet," who would have been his accomplice in the deception. The controversy surrounding Gauguin's "last self-portrait" may well be far from over, as questions about authentication methods and the interpretation of scientific evidence continue to divide experts in the field.
