Ia Orana Maria (Hail Mary)

Ia Orana Maria (Hail Mary) is an 1891 oil-on-canvas painting by the French artist Paul Gauguin, now housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Created shortly after the artist’s arrival in Tahiti, it is considered one of the earliest and most emblematic works of his Tahitian period. In the composition, two Polynesian women greet a Tahitian mother and child, whom Gauguin deliberately reimagines within the Christian framework of the Madonna and Child while situating them in a distinctly local setting. The painting marks Gauguin’s first major attempt to fuse Western religious iconography with what he perceived as the spiritual and visual qualities of Tahitian life, embodying many stylistic themes that would define Gauguin's work in the Pacific.