Paul Gauguin, The Grasshoppers and the Ants – A Memory from Martinique (1889). The rare Gauguin print is one of only two known hand-coloured impressions worldwide. Glyptotek © 2025. Photo: Ana Cecilia González

By Artcentron News             Published 12/31/2025

Copenhagen, 2025 — The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek has acquired a rare Gauguin print, an exceptionally scarce hand-colored lithograph by Paul Gauguin, expanding its internationally recognized collection with its first-ever graphic work by the artist.

The newly acquired work, The Grasshoppers and the Ants—A Memory from Martinique (1889), is one of only two known hand-colored impressions worldwide. The rare Gauguin print entered the Glyptotek’s collection in 2025 and represents a major addition to its holdings of late 19th-century French art.

Until now, the museum’s Gauguin collection—comprising nearly 60 works—has focused on paintings, ceramics, wood carvings, and drawings. This acquisition introduces a lesser-known dimension of the artist’s practice and highlights his brief but significant engagement with printmaking.

The work is a proof from the Volpini Suite, Gauguin’s first and only graphic series. Created during a formative period in his career, the suite anticipated many elements that would later define his artistic language, including flattened compositions, strong contours, and vivid color contrasts. The Glyptotek’s example was printed in black on yellow paper using an experimental zincographic process and subsequently hand-colored with watercolor and gouache.

According to the museum, the rare Gauguin print will play a central role in future presentations of the artist’s work, offering visitors insight into his experimentation across media as well as the historical circumstances that shaped his imagery.

A Rare Gauguin Lithograph From the Volpini Suite

The scene depicted in the print draws on Gauguin’s stay in Martinique in 1887, when the island was under French colonial rule. It portrays Black women working within a tropical landscape, a subject grounded in colonial labor systems. Rather than emphasizing hardship, the figures are shown as calm and idealized, set within a lush and stylized environment. The title references Aesop’s fable of the grasshopper and the ant, suggesting a symbolic contrast between labor and leisure.

Curators at the Glyptotek note that the work exemplifies the tension between Gauguin’s search for an imagined paradise and the realities of colonial life. While visually lyrical, the image reflects a European colonial gaze that transformed lived experience into allegory.

The museum describes the print as both an important artistic experiment and a historical document, encouraging contemporary audiences to reflect on how colonial perspectives influenced the development of modern art.

The work is currently on view in the exhibition Gauguin & Kihara—First Impressions at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.

The acquisition was made possible through the support of the Aage and Johanne Louis-Hansen Foundation, the Augustinus Foundation, and the New Carlsberg Foundation.

Work details
Artist: Paul Gauguin (1848–1903)
Title: Les Cigales et les Fourmis – Souvenir de la Martinique
Year: 1889
Medium: Zincograph, hand-coloured with watercolour and gouache
Dimensions: 20 × 25.9 cm
Edition: One of two known hand-coloured impressions
Provenance: Hugo Perls → Richard Davis → Kornfeld & Klipstein (1968) → Private collection → Sotheby’s New York (2001) → Private collection, USA → Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (2025)