This is “Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?)”, painted by Paul Gauguin in 1892. Someone in Qatar just bought it for $300 million.
Gauguin’s Tahiti-period paintings are among the most admired and coveted artworks of the Post-Impressionist period. This particular piece, focusing on the enigmatic interplay between two girls in a Polynesian landscape, was painted during the first of the artist’s two spells living in Tahiti.
The oil painting was owned by a retired Sotheby’s exec in Switzerland, and had been on loan to the Kunstmuseum Basel for almost 50 years.
Qatar seems to be buying up a wealth of wonderful art – in 2011, Qatar reportedly paid $250 million for Paul Cézanne’s “The Card Players”. The royal family there has also been rapidly collecting “trophy quality Western modern and contemporary art by Mark Rothko, Damien Hirst and Cézanne”.
[Source: The New York Times]
