Provenance
Mme Johanna van Gogh-Bonger [1862-1925], the artist's sister-in-law, Amsterdam; sold 20 November 1890 through (Julien Tanguy Gallery, Paris) to (Willy Gretor [Wilhelm Rudolph Julius Petersen, 1868-1923], Paris);[1] gift to Maria Slavona [1865-1931], Paris and Berlin; her husband Otto Ackermann [1871-1963], Paris and Berlin.[2] Gaston Bernheim de Villers [1870-1953], Paris, by 1919 until at least 1933; sold to Capt. Edward H. Molyneux [1891-1974], Paris;[3] sold 15 August 1955 to Ailsa Mellon Bruce [1901-1969], New York; bequest 1970 to NGA.
[1] Chris Stolwijk and Han Veenenbos, _The account book of Theo van Gogh and Jo van Gogh-Bonger_, Amsterdam and Leiden, 2002: 46, 140-141 note 11/5, 178.
[2] Regarding Willy Gretor's gifts of several van Goghs to the painter Maria Slovona, with whom he had a daughter Lilly, see Carmen Stonge, "Women and the Folkwang: Ida Gerhardi, Milly Steger, and Maria Slavona," _Women's Art Journal_ 15, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 1994):7-8.
[3] The painting was published in 1919 in "Cent-soixante-treize planches d'après la collection privée de MM. J. & G. Bernheim-Jeune," _L'Art Moderne et quelques aspects de l'art d'autrefois_, vol. 1, 1919, pl. 65. Details about Gaston Bernheim de Villers' ownership and his sale of the painting to Molyneux are in a letter of 22 June 1977, from Jean Dauberville at Bernheim-Jeune & Cie. to David Rust, in NGA curatorial files. Although the painting was included in an exhibition at Reid and Lefevre in 1934, and a photograph album in their records includes the painting (with the names "M. Ackermann, Paris" and "Bernheim-Jeune, Paris" under provenance), it is not certain Reid and Lefevre actually owned it. More likely is the possibility that Molyneux purchased the painting from Bernheim de Villers out of the 1934 exhibition, with the sale handled by Bernheim-Jeune Gallery and/or Reid and Lefevre. (Martin Bailey has kindly shared his research on this part of the provenance; see his letter of 22 August 2003, in NGA curatorial files.) The sequence of ownership after Mme van Gogh-Bonger that is given by J.-B. de la Faille in _The Works of Vincent van Gogh, His Paintings and Drawings_, Amsterdam, 1970: no. F565, i.e., Bernheim-Jeune, Reid and Lefevre, Ackermann, Molyneux, is apparently in error.
[4] The purchase date is recorded in the Ailsa Mellon Bruce collection notebook, Gallery Archives, copy in NGA curatorial files.
Accession Number
1970.17.34
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 46.1 x 60.9 cm (18 1/8 x 24 in.) | framed: 74.9 x 88.9 x 10.8 cm (29 1/2 x 35 x 4 1/4 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection
Tags
Painting Impressionist & Modern (1851–1900) Oil Painting Canvas Dutch
Background & Context
Background Story
Farmhouse in Provence was painted in the summer of 1888, during Van Gogh's fifteen-month stay in Arles - the most productive and turbulent period of his career. The painting depicts a Provencal farmhouse surrounded by fields of wheat, with the region's characteristic flat-topped hills visible in the distance. The composition is deceptively simple; the power lies in the color.
Van Gogh arrived in Arles in February 1888, fleeing the gray skies and artistic quarrels of Paris for the intense light of the South. He wrote to his sister Wil: The sun here is tremendous - it makes everything vermillion, emerald green, cobalt. This painting captures that Provencal light with unprecedented urgency: golden wheat fields vibrate against deep blue skies; the farmhouse walls glow with a warm apricot that seems heated from within.
The summer of 1888 was Van Gogh's golden season - he produced over 200 paintings between June and September. But it was also the summer that ended in the famous incident with Gauguin and the severed ear in December. Farmhouse in Provence captures the idyllic moment before the crisis.
Cultural Impact
Van Gogh's Arles paintings transformed the South of France into one of the most potent landscapes in art history - a place where color becomes emotion and light becomes meaning. Every subsequent painter who sought the pure color of Provence, from Matisse to the Fauves, followed a path Van Gogh blazed.
Why It Matters
This painting captures the Arles dream at its most radiant - the moment when Van Gogh believed that pure color and honest labor could create a new kind of paradise. Its beauty is inseparable from the tragedy that followed: the knowledge that this sunlit world would collapse within months.
