Arles, 1888

The record dates Café Terrace at Night (Place du Forum, Arles) to 1888 and names the square in its title, which places it firmly in the Arles year — the busiest in this catalogue, with 135 painted works.

What the record gives

The canvas measures 81 x 65.5 cm and is held by the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, which holds the largest group of works in this catalogue after the Van Gogh Museum. The measured palette returns blue and yellow as the two dominant families, in that order — the reverse of the usual 1888 reading, where yellow leads.

Two night paintings, one year

The record also holds Starry Night Over the Rhone, dated 1888, held by the Musée d'Orsay, and The Night Cafe, dated 1888, held at Yale. Three night pictures in one year, in three collections, on three different scales. It is worth saying plainly that none of them is the canvas usually meant by "the starry night": that work is dated 1889 in this catalogue, is held by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and belongs to the following period. Keeping the four apart is one of the more practical services a chronological catalogue can perform, because popular reproduction routinely confuses them.