He returned to Paris for a brief period in 1895 but felt his was work no longer appreciated there. Following this lack of success in France he sailed back to Tahiti for a more definite period and made the island his home.

It is after his return to the country that he painted Nevermore along with many other works.

Prior to his first departure to the Polynesian islands a farewell dinner was held in Gauguin's honour. At this dinner a recital of the poem 'The Raven' by Edgar Allen Poe was given.

In this narrative a raven visits a distraught lover on a winter's night and croaks the word "Nevermore" to him.

Gauguin always tried to dismiss any comparisons drawn between his painting and the Poe poem, but the raven appearing in the picture and the word "Nevermore" inscribed in the top left of the picture are hard to ignore.

The main subject of the picture is the reclining form of a fully nude Tahitian girl. It is possible that inspiration for the figure comes from Gauguin's native wife, Pahura.

At this time he had permanently separated from his Danish wife, Mette-Sophie Gad, last seeing her in 1891 before his first trip to French Polynesia. Gauguin created the painting a little while after he had received news of the tragic death of his favourite daughter, Aline in 1897.

In a letter to his friend Daniel de Monfreid, Gauguin wrote that his intention with the painting was to use a simple nude subject to capture the 'savage luxuriousness' of an age since passed.

The theme of the work appears less lustful in nature and more of disquieted comfort.

The painting was at one time owned by the English composer Frederick Delius, but is now housed in the Courtauld Gallery, London.