Houses at Auvers by Van Gogh in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, July 2011

Houses at Auvers

1890

Vincent van Gogh, Dutch (worked in France), 1853–1890 Dutch


Dimensions: 75.6 x 61.9 cm (29 3/4 x 24 3/8 in.)

Accession Number: 48.549

Medium or Technique: Oil on canvas


In May 1890, van Gogh moved from the south of France to Auvers, northwest of Paris, painting many of his finest pictures there in a feverish spurt of activity before his suicide in July. Houses at Auvers shows the landscape of early summer. The view from above creates a flattened tapestry of shapes in which the tiled and thatched roofs of the houses form a mesmerizing patchwork of color.

Provenance: By 1905, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger (b. 1862 - d. 1925), Amsterdam; 1908, sold by Van Gogh-Bonger to the Moderne Kunsthandlung Franz Joseph Brakl, Munich. Probably Galerie Thannhauser, Munich. Voss collection, Berlin. 1926, Wildenstein and Co., New York; October 18, 1926, sold by Wildenstein to John Taylor Spaulding (b. 1870 - d. 1948), Boston; 1948, bequest of John Taylor Spaulding to the MFA. (Accession Date: June 3, 1948)

Credit Line: Bequest of John T. Spaulding

Text from: www.mfa.org/collections/object/houses-at-auvers-33278