The Portrait of Doctor Gachet is one of the most revered paintings by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. It depicts Dr. Paul Gachet, a homeopathic doctor and artist He stayed in hospital for a month, Released in 1890, Van Gogh's brother Theo searched for a home for the artist. Upon the recommendation of Camille Pissarro, a former patient of the doctor who told Theo of Gachet's interests in working with artists, Theo sent Vincent to Gachet's second home in Auvers.

Vincent van Gogh's first impression of Gachet was unfavorable. Writing to Theo he remarked: "I think that we must not count on Dr. Gachet at all. First of all, he is sicker than I am, I think, or shall we say just as much, so that's that. Now when one blind man leads another blind man, don't they both fall into the ditch?" In a letter dated two days later to their sister Wilhelmina, he relayed, "I have found a true friend in Dr. Gachet, something like another brother, so much do we resemble each other physically and also mentally."

Van Gogh had a very prolific spell during his stay with Gachet, producing more than seventy paintings, including the portraits of Gachet.

Van Gogh's thoughts returned several times to the painting by Eugène Delacroix of Torquato Tasso in the madhouse. After a visit with Paul Gauguin to Montpellier to see Alfred Bruyas's collection in the Musée Fabre, Van Gogh wrote to Theo, asking if he could find a copy of the lithograph after the painting. Three and a half months earlier, he had been thinking of the painting as an example of the sort of portraits he wanted to paint: "But it would be more in harmony with what Eugène Delacroix attempted and brought off in his Tasso in Prison, and many other pictures, representing a real man. Ah! portraiture, portraiture with the thought, the soul of the model in it, that is what I think must come."

Van Gogh wrote to his sister in 1890 about the painting:

The portraits of Dr. Gachet were completed just six weeks before Van Gogh shot himself and died from his wounds.

Composition

thumb|upright|Van Gogh Self-portrait

thumb|upright|L'Arlesienne (Madame Ginoux)

Van Gogh painted Gachet resting his right elbow on a red table, head in hand. Two yellow books as well as the purple medicinal herb foxglove are displayed on the table. The foxglove in the painting is a plant from which digitalis is extracted for the treatment of certain heart complaints, perhaps an attribute of Gachet as a physician. Wallace described the ultramarine blue coat of Gachet, set against a background of hills painted a lighter blue, as highlighting the "tired, pale features and transparent blue eyes that reflect the compassion and melancholy of the man." He also wrote, "My self-portrait is done in nearly the same way but the blue is the fine blue of the Midi, and the clothes are a light lilac," In August 1939, Koenigs transported the paintings from Paris to Knoedler's in New York. Siegfried Kramarsky fled to Lisbon in November 1939 and arrived January 1940 in New York. The paintings ended up in Kramarsky's custody, where the work was often lent to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. where it became famous for Ryoei Saito, honorary chairman of Daishowa Paper Manufacturing Co., paying US$82.5 million for it ($75 million, plus a 10 percent buyer's commission), making it then the world's most expensive painting. Two days later Saito bought Renoir's Bal du moulin de la Galette for nearly as much: $78.1 million at Sotheby's. The 75-year-old Japanese businessman commented that he would have the Van Gogh painting cremated with him after his death. Though he later said he would consider giving the painting to the Japanese government or a museum, no information has been made public about the exact location and ownership of the portrait since his death in 1996. Reports in 2007 said the painting was sold a decade earlier to the Austrian-born investment fund manager Wolfgang Flöttl. Flöttl, in turn, had reportedly been forced by financial reversals to sell the painting to parties as yet unknown.

Second version

thumb|upright|Portrait of Dr Gachet with Pipe, May 1890<br /> [[etching, 18 cm × 15 cm<br> (Van Gogh's only etching)]]

There is a second version of the portrait which was owned by Gachet himself. In the early 1950s, along with the remainder of his personal collection of Post-Impressionist paintings, it was bequeathed to the Republic of France by his heirs.

The authenticity of the second version has often come under scrutiny due to a number of factors. In a letter dated 3 June 1890 to Theo, Vincent mentions his work on the portrait, which includes "... a yellow book and a foxglove plant with purple flowers." The subsequent letter sent to Wilhelmina also mentions "yellow novels and a foxglove flower." Additionally, some critics have noted the sheer number of works to emerge from Van Gogh's stay in Auvers, roughly eighty in seventy days, and questioned whether he painted them all himself. Prior to the exhibition, the museum commissioned infrared, ultraviolet and chemical analysis of eight works each by Van Gogh, Cézanne, and the Gachets for comparison. The studies showed pigments on the Van Gogh paintings faded differently from the Gachet copies.

Etching

Van Gogh, introduced to etching by Gachet, made the etching Portrait of Doctor Gachet in 1890. Gachet and Van Gogh discussed creating a series of southern France themes but that never happened. This was the one and only etching, also known as L'homme à la pipe (Man with a pipe), that Van Gogh ever made. Van Gogh's brother, Theo, who received an impression of the etching, called it "a true painter's etching. No refinement in the execution, but a drawing on metal." It is a different pose than that in Van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet, owned by Musée d'Orsay. The National Gallery of Canada finds that "The undulating flow of the line is typical of the expressive quality of Van Gogh's late style." The impression owned by the National Gallery is from one of the 60 printings following Van Gogh's death by Dr. Gachet's son, Paul Gachet Jr. Gachet's collector's stamp appears on the bottom edge of the print.

See also

  • List of works by Vincent van Gogh
  • List of most expensive paintings

References

Further reading

  • Saltzman, Cynthia: Portrait of Dr. Gachet: The Story of a Van Gogh Masterpiece: Money, Politics, Collectors, Greed, and Loss.
  • Musée d'Orsay: Vincent van Gogh Dr Paul Gachet
  • Van Gogh, Paintings and Drawings: A Special Loan Exhibition, a fully digitized exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries, which contains material on this painting (see index)
  • Moffett, Charles S. Van Gogh as Critic and Self-Critic, 1973 exhibition catalog from the Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • Podcast Finding Van Gogh, released 12 September 2019 by the Staedel Museum.