Annah the Javanese, or The Child-woman Judith Is Not Yet Breached

Annah the Javanese was painted in Paris in 1893–94, during Gauguin's only extended return to France between his two Tahitian sojourns. Annah, whose full name was Anna Charrier, was a teenage model of mixed Southeast Asian and possibly Indian origin whom the dealer Ambroise Vollard had sent to Gauguin. Her exotic otherness fascinated Gauguin as a living embodiment of his primitivist fantasy. The painting caused a scandal when exhibited: the nude figure seated in a ceremonial posture, accompanied by a small monkey, directly challenged European norms of decorum and racial convention. Gauguin destroyed the frame after a brawl with Breton fishermen left him with a broken ankle; Annah meanwhile ransacked his studio before disappearing.

Gauguin places Annah on an elaborately carved throne-like chair, her pose upright and frontal in deliberate contrast to reclining odalisque conventions. The palette is dominated by oranges and acid greens, the background panelling rendered in flat, unmodulated strokes that announce his mature synthetist style.