« Gwendoline is a little girl from the Marquesas Islands – and a dead ringer for those vahines that Gauguin was fond of painting. She listened carefully to the questions I asked her as I followed my habit of questioning each of my models to fill out their portraits. Her mother prompted her for quite a few of the answers, possibly including this one: “My only wish is to have a husband who is very loving and very kind.”

Extract from Femmes du Monde, Gallimard Edition 2007