A title that names its own chronology

The record dates Cottages and Cypresses: Reminiscence of the North to 1890, the Auvers year. The title itself points backwards, and the catalogue can say what it points at: eighteen titles here name a cottage, eight of them dated 1885 in the Nuenen period and seven dated 1890. A subject that fills the first period and returns in the last, five years apart, is exactly the pattern a dated arrangement exists to show.

What the record gives

The canvas measures 36.5 by 29 centimetres, a small upright, and it is held by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which holds thirteen of the eighty-four works dated 1890. The measured palette reads as green and yellow.

Two words, two periods

Cypresses are a late motif in this record: ten titles name one, and none is dated earlier than 1888. Cottages are an early one. This title carries both, and it is dated to the last year. The catalogue also holds a second 1890 title using the same phrase, Thatched Cottages in the Sunshine Reminiscence of the North, kept as a separate record. What the word reminiscence refers to is the title's business; the record adds nothing to it, and neither does this page.