This watercolor and ink work on paper by Italian-Argentine artist/architect Clorindo Manuel Jose Testa was inspired by Paul Gauguin's travel journel "Noa Noa." Gauguin kept the journal during his first visit to Tahiti between 1891 and 1893.
The phrase, 'noa noa,' was used by Gauguin to describe the scent of the Tahitian women: "A mingled perfume, half animal, half vegetable emanated from them; the perfume of their blood and of the gardenias—tiaré—which they wore in their hair.
"Téiné merahi noa noa (now very fragrant)," they said.