Works

Too little is known yet about the life of the woman whose name literature records as Tohotaua (c. 1882 - 19??). Unlike the narratives surrounding Gauguin describe it, she probably belonged to the higher society on the island of Hiva Oa because she was married to a taua, a key figure in the religious, social, and cultural life of ancient Polynesian society. Gauguin used a photograph of Tohotaua as a model for this painting. The photographic portrait was already posed; in his painting, however, Gauguin altered Tohotaua's image even further: with the feather object in her hand and the Greek-looking dress that exposes her breasts, Gauguin's depiction conforms to the sexualized stereotype of the young Polynesian woman that was shaped in the 18th century by the accounts of seafarers such as Louis-Antoine Bougainville and James Cook. »Jeune fille à l'eventail« is therefore less a portrait of Tohotaua than an image of the white male gaze on a Polynesian female body rendered nameless.