Paris (AFP)

A landscape of green, blue and mauve vegetation with a horseman in the distance, seeming to move away ... "Te Bourao (II)", one of the rare paintings of the Tahitian period of Gauguin to be still in hands will be auctioned in December by Artcurial.

Estimated between 5 and 7 million euros, this oil on canvas dating from 1897 is part of a cycle of nine paintings made in Tahiti that the French painter (1848-1903) sent to Paris for an exhibition at the Ambroise Gallery. Vollard, with limited success.

Among them is his testamentary work "Where do we come from, what are we, where are we going?", Which is on display at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

At first sight less metaphysical than the famous painting, "Te Bourao (II)" ("the tree" in Tahitian) is not a new scene in Tahitian life, dear to the painter who made the Marquesas and Tahiti his refuge at the end of his life.

"What he describes can be very figurative and at the same time completely abstract," says Bruno Jaubert, Artcurial's director of Impressionist and Modern Art. In Gauguin's vision, "the presence of the horseman who goes away is like the presence of Man on the earth, what remains is nature itself".

Probably evocation of "a lost paradise with a virgin nature and a very limited presence of Man", "Te Bourao (II)" is the last tableau of the cycle to be still in private hands, even if he has a lot been lent in recent years. He has exhibited at MET in New York from 2007 to 2017.

Previously, the painting had a fairly linear history: Ambroise Vollard preserved it, then exhibited at the Salon d'Automne in 1906, under the title "Blue landscape".

When he died, "Te Bourao (II)" returned to his heirs, who sold it back in 1995 to the buyer who had lost it today.

Its sale is an event as it is rare to find a Gauguin of this period, the most sought after by collectors and museums, and in a very good condition. The last sale on the French market of a painting of these years goes back to 22 years, says one at Artcurial.

The other eight paintings in this cycle are on display in museums around the world: the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the Barber Institute in Birmingham, and the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. The auction of "Te Bourao (II)", unveiled to the public from 4 to 9 October, will take place on 3 December.

© 2019 AFP