"Hope" by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (see reference to Gauguin on this link)
"Nature Morte à L'Espérance" by Paul Gauguin
A painting by Paul Gauguin will be up for auction at Christies in February. They say it is a tribute to his friend Vincent Van Gogh who had committed suicide 11 years earlier. The main subject is sunflowers (shown above), but the painting's title, "Nature Morte a L'Esperance", means "Still Life has Hope" and in the upper left hand corner is a reproduction of my favorite Pierre Puvis De Chavannes' painting called "Hope" (1872). Gauguin painted this nude with a slight turn of the head, but the title of his painting and the nude on the wall definitely pay tribute to Pierre Puvis De Chavannes. There is also a small B & W image on the wall that looks a little like a french nude postcard, but one article says it is a nod to Degas. We can only ponder the meanings. The year Gauguin painted it (in Tahiti), 1901, there was also a retrospective of Van Gogh's work in Paris. Two years after painting it, Gauguin died at age 54. LINK
