Sea (Fatata te Miti)

Piet Mondrian

National Gallery of Art

This image is associated with the title 'Sea (Fatata te Miti) 1892' and attributed to Piet Mondrian; however, no painting under this title and date is documented in Mondrian's catalogue raisonné or major museum records. 'Fatata te Miti' (By the Sea, 1892) is in fact a well-documented oil painting by French Post-Impressionist Paul Gauguin, held at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., painted during his first visit to Tahiti. In 1892, Mondrian had just enrolled at the Academy for Fine Art in Amsterdam and was working in a naturalistic, Hague School-influenced manner, painting landscapes of the Dutch countryside. Mondrian's first documented seascape paintings date from 1908–1909, produced during visits to Domburg, Zeeland, and are held in collections including the Yale University Art Gallery and the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag.