Financial considerations curtailed Gauguin's first stay in Tahiti (1891–93), but he returned in 1895 and remained in the islands until his death in 1903. Two Tahitian Women, painted in 1899, depicts the natives that Gauguin admired because they were uncorrupted by the trappings of European civilization. The woman on the left has been identified as Gauguin's mistress Pahura. The pose of the other woman appears in several works Gauguin executed between 1896 and 1899; the position of her hands derives from carvings in the Javanese temple of Borobudur.

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