‘At present we are installed in a negro hut (in Martinique) and it is Paradise in comparison with the Isthmus. Below us is the sea, fringed with coconut trees, above us fruit trees of all sorts - twenty-five minutes away from the town (St Pierre).Negroes and negresses wander around all day singing creole songs and chattering without stopping. Don’t think it’s monotonous, for on the contrary it is very varied3Ú4 Nature at its most exuberant, a hot climate with cool intervals’ (Letter to Mette of 20th June 1887.)
ButGauguinhad contracted malaria in Panama, and this was followed by a violent attack of dysentery which immobilised his for the whole month of August and part of September. Nevertheless, before his illness he had finished at least ‘a dozen canvases, four of them with figures far superior to my Pont-Aven period’ (Letter to Schuffenecker of September 1887) and altogether he brought home nearly twenty paintings. Sick and penniless once more,Gauguinand Laval borrowed enough money from friends in Paris to pay their passage to France where they arrived before the 24th November.
The present picture was one of those bought by Theo van Gogh in February 1888. Emile Bernard describes this as the most beautiful picture of the group.