This drawing is dated at around 1875/1876 which is in line with the information that we have on Emil's life. In this piece he has a little more hair than in others, and so would have been at least a few months older. Indeed, he is already starting to resemble a child more than baby by this point and his father attempts to document his progression through a series of sketches in black crayon. They may well have all been within the same sketchpad, prior to being broken up and sold or gifted separately. Thankfully, many continue to sit together within the Cleveland Museum of Art who own a number of them and have provided a good amount of information about them on their own website as well as in some publications.
Within this composition the child looks directly at us, with darkened eyes and a small shadow on his right hand side. His hair is relatively well developed for his age, though relatively unstyled and almost coming down over his ears. His lips are pursed and his face is relatively square in shape. Gauguin chooses not to include any other information within this artwork, other than a suggestion of clothing or bed sheets via some horizontal lines which spread the full width of this drawing.
You can discover this item within the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, though check ahead of any visit if you really want to see it on display, as their selection of work is rotated frequently. They simply have too many art and antiquities to show them all at once, even though the capacity of their venue is fairly large. They may also loan in items from elsewhere on occasion for specialised exhibitions, leaving even less space for articles such as this. Whilst Gauguin is an exciting name in the art world, most visitors will tend to be more interested in seeing his paintings than his drawings, and so those tend to be given a greater prominence. This is the case for most famous artists but in recent years there has been a greater attempt to widen exhibitions to include the full oeuvre of each artist's career.
