Auvers, 1890

The record dates Mademoiselle Gachet in her garden at Auvers-sur-Oise to 1890, the final year, and names both a person and a place. Four works in this catalogue carry the Gachet name and every one of them is dated 1890 — this canvas, The Garden of Doctor Gachet at Auvers-sur-Oise, and two portraits of the doctor himself.

What the record gives

The canvas measures 46 x 55 cm, small for the year, and it is held by the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. The measured palette returns yellow and green as the dominant families, the ordinary reading for 1890.

A name that appears only at the end

Named sitters mark the last three periods of this catalogue and nothing earlier: the Roulins in Arles across 1888 and 1889, Madame Ginoux at Arles and again in 1890, the Gachets only in 1890. A reader following the chronology can see the painter's circle change with each move simply by watching which surnames enter the titles and when. The relationship behind a name is not something the record states, and this entry does not supply one. What it supports is the date, the place, the size, and the collection that holds the canvas now.