PORTRAIT OF DR. GACHET

Portrait of Dr. Gachet by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh is regarded by some as his best work.

Vincent painted two versions, both were painted in June, 1890. Paul-Ferdinand Gachet was the Doctor who treated Vincent during the last few months of his life. Gachet himself was an amateur painter. Him and Vincent had a close friendship.

The portraits of Dr. Gachet were painted in Auvers-sur-Oise close to Paris. Both show Doctor Gachet sitting at a leaning on a red table with his right arm. His head rests on his arm. There are two books on the table, titled Germinie Lacerteux) and Manette Salomon. Gachet took care of Van Gogh during the artist's last months.

Van Gogh wrote to his brother in 1890 about the painting:
"I've done the portrait of M. Gachet with a melancholy expression, which might well seem like a grimace to those who see it... Sad but gentle, yet clear and intelligent, that is how many portraits ought to be done... There are modern heads that may be looked at for a long time, and that may perhaps be looked back on with longing a hundred years later".

The original version of Portrait of Dr. Gachet was sold by van Gogh's sister-in-law for 300 francs in 1897. The painting then changed hands several times, Paul Cassirer (1904), Kessler (1904), and Druet (1910). The painting was acquired by the Städel (Städtische Galerie) in Frankfurt, Germany In 1911. The Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda confiscated the painting in 1937. Hermann Göring was able to get hold of the painting and quickly sold it to an dealer in Amsterdam. Siegfried Kramarsky purchased it and took it with him to New York. In 1990, Kramarsky's family put the painting up for auction. The painting was sold for US$82.5 million, setting the record as the most expensive painting in the world up to that time. The painting was later re-sold in 1990 to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.


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Vincent Gogh