In 1889 Gauguin worked in the village of Le Pouldu. There he created this dizzying panorama, recording the site's craggy cliffs and the waves breaking on the beach. At right are a girl with her scythe and a boy playing a flageolet, or flute - symbols of the artist's attachment to the harmonies of Breton life.

Yet Gauguin also altered the view to suit his imagination, boldly pairing near and far, steep and flat to create a complex surface pattern. And where has he placed the viewer-hovering perilously over the abyss?

Sold by the artist at the Vente Gauguin in 1891 to a “M[onsieur] Strauss.”{1} Probably to (Ambroise Vollard, [1867-1939] Paris) between 1894 and 1899.{2} To the collector, artist and benefactor of Gauguin, Gustave Fayet [1865-1925]. By 1928 in the collection of George Viau [1855-1939], Paris;{3} purchased from the posthumous auction of the Viau collection by a Paris collector named Ménard;{4} sold via (Drouot Montaigne, Paris) to Samuel Josefowitz, Lausanne in 1992;{5} acquired as a partial gift, partial purchase by the Indianapolis Museum of Art in 1998 (1998.168).

{1} It appears in the Catalogue d’une vente de 30 Tableaux de Paul Gauguin, Hotel Drouot, Paris, 23 February 1891 as no. 19 (“Au-dessus de la Mer”), as correctly cited in Georges Wildenstein, Gauguin, 1964, cat. rais. no. 361: “à M. Strauss, 32, rue de Lévis.” Labels on the verso of the stretcher, which are reproduced in the 1992 sale catalogue, Drouot Montaigne, Paris, Importants Tableaux des XIXe et XXe siècles under the multi-page entry for this painting, mistakenly identify it as no. 29 (“Au-dessus du gouffre”) of the Vente Gauguin. The latter painting – Wildenstein, 1964, cat. rais. no. 282 and Wildenstein, 2002, cat. rais. no. 310 – passed from this sale via the collection of Comte Guy de Cholet directly to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. The merit of the 1992 Drouot Montaigne sale catalogue rests on its facsimile reproduction of the checklist for the 1891 Vente Gauguin catalogue.
{2} Despite the fact that a 1902 letter from Monfreid to Gauguin cited in Wildenstein, 1964, p. 138 doubts Vollard’s ownership of this painting, new research for the Ambroise Vollard: Patron of the Avant-Garde exhibition, jointly organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Art Institute of Chicago and the Musée d’Orsay, confirms that it passed through Vollard’s hands early on.
{3} See Paul Gauguin, 1848-1903, Kunsthalle Basel, July-August 1928, cat. no. 53, as lent by “Dr. G. Viau, Paris.” There are also four “Collection George Viau” labels on the stretcher citing former exhibitions this painting was included in.
{4} See Catalogue des Tableaux Modernes composant la Collection de M. Georges (sic) Viau, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 11 December 1942, lot. No. 102 (ill.).
{5} See letter from Daniel Wildenstein to Samuel Josefowitz, dated 23 September 1998, stating: “[ce peinture] a toujours appartenu à Ménard depuis la vente Viau où il l’avait acheté,” in IMA Historical File (1998.168).