The Sculptor Jean Paul Aubé (1837-1916) and his son Emile

Gauguin's double portrait of the sculptor Jean Paul Aubé and his young son Emile was painted in the early 1880s, when Gauguin was moving in the artistic circles of Paris and acquiring Impressionist paintings. Aubé was a respected sculptor associated with the Salon, and the portrait commission gave Gauguin an opportunity to practice his nascent figure-painting skills in a formal context. The presence of the child alongside the dignified professional figure gives the work an intimate, domestic dimension unusual in his pre-Tahitian output, which was generally more concerned with formal experiment than psychological warmth.

The two figures are juxtaposed with careful attention to their relative scale and the spatial relationship between adult authority and childlike dependence. The handling of the sculptor's face shows careful modelling of form, while the child's softer features are rendered with lighter, more fluid strokes. The background is kept neutral to focus attention on the figures.