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Madame 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.

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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.

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Oil on canvas · 92.7 × 73.8 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Post-Impressionism

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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

Artist’s life 1853–1890

Post-Impressionism c. 1886–1905

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Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.

Madame Roulin Rocking the Cradle (La berceuse) · Vincent van Gogh, 1889
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Madame Roulin Rocking the Cradle (La berceuse), Vincent van Gogh

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