This unfinished oil on paper picture was most probably made around 1891 during Gauguin's first stay in Tahiti. He began by making a number of studies in order to come to terms with his new subject-matter. He had written to artist and art collector Daniel de Monfreid (1856-1929): ‘I work more and more but so far only studies or rather documents ... If they aren't of use to me later they will be useful to others.’ (11 March 1892). It compares with Two Women on a Beach (Musée du Louvre); Te Faaturuma (Worcester Art Museum, USA); and Road in Tahiti (Toledo Museum of Art, USA), all of which are dated 1891.
Lytton’s sister, Marjorie Strachey (1882-1964) intended to purchase ‘Tahitian Subject’ (which was priced £30 from Galerie E. Druet, Paris) whilst it was displayed at Roger Fry’s Manet and the Post-Impressionists (1910) exhibition. However, he persuaded her to let it be acquired by the Contemporary Art Society, which he had recently co-founded and a member of its executive committee so it could go to the nation instead. It seems to have owned it himself briefly between January-December 1911 whilst it was exhibited in Dublin and Liverpool that year. It was presented by the CAS, after being on show twice more in London, and Belfast, to the Tate Gallery in 1917 and is the first work of the artist to enter a UK public collection.
