Paul Gauguin
Paul Gauguin was born at 56 rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette on 7 June 1848. The family left France for Peru soon after, and his father died during the voyage.
56 rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette
Still standing
Outside only
Someone else
The house where Paul Gauguin was born on 7 June 1848, months before the family fled France for Peru — a departure that killed his father and shaped everything that came after.
- 56 rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, 75009 Paris
- Gauguin was born here on 7 June 1848
The place, briefly
Paul Gauguin was born here on 7 June 1848, in a year of revolution. His father Clovis was a republican journalist, and when Louis-Napoléon consolidated power the family judged France unsafe and sailed for Peru, where his mother Aline had relatives of some standing.
Clovis died of a heart attack during the crossing. Aline arrived in Lima a widow with two small children, and Gauguin spent his first years there among a wealthy Peruvian household — an early, formative stretch of childhood spent somewhere emphatically not European. He came back to France at six or seven.
It is tempting and slightly too neat to draw a straight line from that to Tahiti forty years later. But the pattern of his life — leaving, going further, not coming back — starts at this door, and he did not choose the first departure.
The building stands and carries a plaque. It is private.
Key facts
- 7 June 1848
- Clovis Gauguin, a republican journalist
- Political danger after Louis-Napoléon's rise
- Clovis died at sea; the family reached Lima without him
- Private building — plaque and façade
Timeline
Gauguin is born on 7 June.
The family sails for Peru; his father dies during the voyage.
Gauguin returns to France as a child.
On the map
Questions before you go
Where was Paul Gauguin born?
At 56 rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette in the 9th arrondissement, on 7 June 1848. A plaque marks the building.
Why did Gauguin grow up in Peru?
His family left France for political reasons when he was an infant. His father died on the voyage and his mother raised the children in Lima for several years.
People who knew this place
Within walking distance
Le Grand Duc
The tiny Montmartre nightclub where Langston Hughes washed dishes in 1924 and Bricktop began her Paris career — an eight-foot bar, a dance floor for a dozen couples, and the after-hours jam sessions that ended the quarter's nights.
Visit the place5 rue Henri-Monnier
The house of Gustave Arosa — businessman, photographer and collector — who became Paul Gauguin's guardian, found him his job at the Bourse, and owned the Delacroix, Courbet and Pissarro canvases that started him painting.
Visit the place15 rue La Bruyère
A Paul Gauguin address in the 9th arrondissement during the years when he was still a stockbroker, painting on Sundays and quietly assembling one of the better private Impressionist collections in Paris.
Visit the place37 rue Victor-Massé
The apartment and studio where Edgar Degas worked for the last quarter-century of his career, on a street then called the rue de Laval. Paul Valéry was brought here to meet him in 1896. Degas was evicted in 1912 and never really worked again.
Visit the placeThe Friday Letter
Paris, one address at a time.
The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.