In 1884, during a restless period of transition, Paul Gauguin painted Mlle S. Manthey while still living in Copenhagen with his Danish wife and children. This was a rare moment when the future pioneer of Post-Impressionism was working as a stockbroker by day and painting in the evenings, caught between the demands of family life and the lure of artistic ambition.

The sitter, Signe Manthey, was a friend of Gauguin’s wife, and her portrait stands as one of the few records of his brief Danish sojourn—a time he later described as “a period of misery and cold.” The work is a window onto a lesser-known chapter of Gauguin’s life, before his radical Tahitian experiments. The painting captures Signe Manthey at a moment of poised introspection, her gaze turned slightly away from the viewer, lips pressed in thought. Gauguin’s brushwork, still tethered to the naturalistic conventions of the Impressionist circle he had frequented in Paris, lingers on the textures of her dress and the soft fall of light across her features. The restrained palette and careful modeling of the face set this work apart from the bold colors and flattened forms that would later define Gauguin’s style.

Unlike Manet’s more provocative portraits of Parisian women, here the sitter’s dignity is preserved, her individuality quietly asserted through the directness of her pose and the subtle warmth in her expression. Little is known of the painting’s early history; it was likely kept in private hands, possibly by the Manthey family or Gauguin’s own circle, before entering public collections. Mlle S. Manthey stands as a rare survivor from Gauguin’s Danish period, a time when he was still searching for his artistic voice.

Today, it is valued not only for its delicate portrayal but also as a document of the artist’s transformation—bridging his early, more conventional work and the revolutionary vision that would soon emerge. Its presence in museum collections offers a glimpse of the artist before legend overtook the man.