Vincent Van Gogh: Une liseuse de romans

Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890), Une liseuse de romans, oil on canvas, 28¾ x 36¼ in. (73 x 92.1 cm), Painted in Arles, November 1888, Image Source: Christie’s

“Van Gogh painted the canvas in mid-November, during the fourth week of Gauguin’s stay at Arles. A period of bad weather had descended upon the region, and the two painters were forced to work indoors. On November 10th, Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo, “We are having wind and rain here, and I am very glad not to be alone. I work from memory on bad days, and that would not do if I were alone” (Letter to Theo 718/561). Two days later, Van Gogh wrote to his sister Wil about two paintings that he had just completed, Memory of the Garden at Etten (De la Faille no. 496; fig. 1) and the present canvas: “I have also painted Une Liseuse de romans, the luxuriant hair very black, a green bodice, the sleeves the color of wine lees, the skirt black, the background all yellow, bookshelves with books. She is holding a yellow book in her hands” (Letter to Wil 720/W9). On the same day, Van Gogh discussed these two paintings in a letter to Theo, describing Une Liseuse de romans as “a woman reading a novel in a library like the Lecture Française, a woman all in green” (Letter to Theo 719/562). He mentioned the present painting once more, in a letter to Emile Bernard the following year: “As you know, once or twice, while Gauguin was in Arles, I gave myself free rein with abstractions, for instance in… Une Liseuse de romans, black in a yellow library” (Letter to Bernard 822/B21).”
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Detail of works by Vincent van Gogh paired with Haydn’s Piano Sonata no. 38. Performance by Ivan Ilić, recorded in Manchester in December, 2006, by Jayson King