The skeleton of Paul Gauguin’s father has been found at a remote site in Chile, near Cape Horn. Clovis Gauguin died while travelling to Peru with his wife Aline and his two young children, Marie and Paul, who was only 14 months old when his father died.
The extraordinary discovery, which has been confirmed through the collaboration of scientists on three continents and is reported in a new book by the art historian Caroline Boyle-Turner, sheds light on Paul Gauguin’s early childhood in South America and his later life in French Polynesia.
In 1849, Clovis fled France with his young family. He worked for a radical newspaper and when political problems developed he decided to leave for Peru where his wife had relatives. The family sailed on the French ship Albert, bound for Lima. On 30 October 1849, the vessel reached the coastal fort of Fuerte Bulnes within the Straits of Magellan, which divide Tierra del Fuego from the rest of southern Chile. The Albert anchored to take on fresh water, having spent nearly three months crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
The passengers went ashore in a small whaling boat for a few hours. During the short trip to the fort, Clovis suffered a heart aneurism and died at 2pm, according to records kept by the ship’s captain. He was buried in the grounds of the fort, and his grieving wife and two small children had to return to the Albert to continue their voyage to Lima the following day. The family would remain in Peru for six years before returning to France.
The Chilean fort, which had been built in 1843, was abandoned soon after the Albert’s visit and was destroyed in 1852. Fuerte Bulnes is now regarded as an important historical site and is being studied by archaeologists. This has revealed the existence of a small cemetery, which held 12 bodies. Eleven skeletons were identified as nomadic native Americans (or of mixed blood) and one as a European male.
Identifying Clovis Reports in The Art Newspaper in 2007 and 2014 sparked the attempt to identify the remains of Clovis. Jacqueline Galimany, a graduate anthropology student at the University of Chile in Santiago, recalled our story about the discovery of four human teeth in a small glass bottle buried in a disused well on the site of Paul Gauguin’s house in the Marquesas Islands in the southern Pacific.
Initial DNA tests on the teeth at the University of Chicago in 2014 showed they were likely to be those of the artist. They showed evidence of severe cavities and had presumably been extracted, saved in a bottle and then discarded down the well with other detritus soon after he died. Gauguin had lived on Hiva Oa, in French Polynesia, for nearly two years until his death on the island in 1903.
Galimany realised that a DNA analysis of the bones found in Fuerte Bulnes could show whether they belonged to Clovis. She therefore contacted Mauricio Moraga, the archaeologist leading the excavation of the fort, who agreed to proceed with a scientific analysis.
Although the DNA analysis of the teeth found on Hiva Oa suggested they belonged to the artist, the US forensic dentistry specialist, William Mueller, proposed a more sophisticated analysis. This led to a strontium isotope analysis of tooth enamel by Petrus Le Roux of the University of Cape Town, who confirmed that the teeth had belonged to someone brought up between the ages of two and seven on the diet of the Lima region.
Another piece of the DNA puzzle was provided by Marcel Tai Gauguin, a retired Tahitian builder, now aged 68. He claims to be the grandson of one of the artist’s local mistresses, Pauura a Tai. Marcel’s Y-chromosomes were found to match those of the skeleton at Fuerte Bulnes.
Boyle-Turner says the Fuerte Bulnes bones, the Hiva Oa teeth and Marcel represent different generations of the artist’s family: “The scientific evidence is conclusive in showing that the bones are indeed those of Clovis by matching the DNA sample taken from Marcel. Strontium isotope studies also convincingly point to Paul as the owner of the teeth found buried in the well in the Marquesas.” Marcel’s claim to be the artist’s grandson has been questioned, but the DNA examination confirms that Paul Gauguin was indeed his grandfather.
• Caroline Boyle-Turner’s book, Paul Gauguin and the Marquesas: Paradise Found?, is published by Vagamundo