Still Life with Bowl of Fruit and Lemons

This 1890 still life at the Langmatt Foundation in Baden shows a bowl of fruit with lemons — painted in the year before Gauguin's first departure for Tahiti, as he was preparing mentally and practically for his radical break with European life. His still lifes of this period increasingly show the flat, bold color areas and strong outlines of his Synthetist manner, yet retain the domestic intimacy of the still life tradition. The Langmatt canvas belongs to a private collection assembled by Sidney and Jenny Brown that concentrated particularly on Post-Impressionism, and provides an important context for understanding how widely Gauguin's work was collected beyond France.

The fruit bowl is painted with simplified forms and bold color contrasts — the yellows and greens of lemons and other fruit set against a tilted table surface. Gauguin's characteristic strong outlines contain the simplified color areas. The composition shows his movement away from Impressionist optical analysis toward flat, graphic organization.