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Your galleryMadame Roulin Rocking the Cradle (La berceuse)
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Find the rope held near Augustine Roulin’s hands; it leads to a cradle outside the picture. Compare its curve with the flowers behind her.
Van Gogh painted five versions of Augustine Roulin rocking a cradle. This January 1889 canvas later became a gift to Gauguin, with instructions that it should hang between two sunflower paintings. The apparently self-contained portrait was therefore also conceived as part of a larger arrangement of pictures.
Oil on canvas · 92.7 × 73.8 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Post-Impressionism
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Madame Roulin Rocking the Cradle (La berceuse)
- Artist
- Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890)
- Date
- 1889
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 92.7 × 73.8 cm (36 1/2 × 29 1/2 in.); Framed: 111.9 × 91.8 × 8.3 cm (44 1/16 × 36 1/8 × 3 1/2 in.)
- Credit line
- Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.







