The Case of the Disappearing Gauguin: A Study of Authenticity and the Art Market

A globetrotting Gold Rush heiress. An awkward Paris schoolmaster. A celebrated French actor. And a museum of history and art in California’s Central Valley. What do they have in common? They are all connected by an oil painting, a still life called Flowers and Fruit, that may or may not have been painted by the post-Impressionist Paul Gauguin. In the decade that museums began to collect modern art, Flowers and Fruit traveled the art market in Paris and New York. Experts and connoisseurs hailed it as a signature work of Gauguin just as he came to be acknowledged as a master. When it joined the Haggin Museum in Stockton, California, locals treasured it as “the Museum’s Gauguin.” But by 1964, Gauguin scholars and experts in Paris and New York had lost track of the painting and declared it lost. When it resurfaced in 2018, they questioned its authenticity. How could a genuine Gauguin have been hiding in plain sight in a provincial American museum? Is Flowers and Fruit a forgery or is it authentic? Follow along as historian, curator, and professor of museum studies Dr. Stephanie Brown traces the unlikely history of the painting. Using never-before-seen archives and making new connections, Brown writes the biography of a painting—and explores what we mean by authenticity and who gets to define it. Now undergoing technical examination as a result of Dr. Brown’s findings, Flowers and Fruit has embarked on a new chapter of its life. If the painting is authentic, it will be the most valuable painting in the Haggin’s collection—and one of the most important paintings in California. And if the painting is a forgery, who was the forger?

About the Author :
Stephanie Brown is Assistant Program Director for the Johns Hopkins University’s MA in Museum Studies. She discovered Flowers and Fruit, a still-life formerly attributed to Paul Gauguin, in a museum in California’s Central Valley in 2016. Intrigued, she began to research the painting’s history and ask questions about its provenance. Dr. Brown earned her BA from Williams College and her PhD in French history from Stanford University.

Review :
Interesting to both amateur and professional art enthusiasts. The Case of the Disappearing Gauguin is a captivating exploration of art authentication through the real-life journey of one painting. Through meticulous research and masterful storytelling, Brown unravels a mystery set in the intricate world of auction houses, collectors, and provenance research. It’s a fascinating and provocative tale. Transforming a painting's provenance into page-turner, Brown brilliantly weaves together the art world of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century France, an American heiress, and an ambitious California town. Along the way, she expertly illuminates critical questions around historical sources, authenticity, value, and meaning over time. This book demonstrates why art history is such an essential field of study. As Stephanie Brown demonstrates, paintings are not just pictures; they are records of connection over time. The Case of the Disappearing Gauguin is an engaging narrative, giving the reader both the well-researched biography of a painting and an art historical mystery to unravel.