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Home , Seine (Van Gogh series), Vincent van Gogh

MARK W. ROSKILL

Van Gogh's exchanges of

work with Emile Bernard in 1888

THIS article deals with the problem of identifying the and paintings that sent to Emile Bernard during the course of 18881. Vincent and Bernard had met one another in in 1887. They painted together at Asnieres that summer. They also exchanged canvases with one another-Vincent giving Bernard a self-portrait of his (evidently F 526/H 424), and also, apparently, the Woman in a Garden (F 368/H 291)2. They then began corresponding regularly when Vincent went off to .

1. This article is intended as a supplement in two areas to the new tains, in its van Gogh entries, some comments and findings also given edition of De La Faille's van Gogh catalogue, prepared by a committee or expanded in the present article. in Holland, which has just appeared (English version: The Works of' In accordance with standard practice, J. B. De La Faille's 1928 catalo- Virtcentvan Gogh, His Paintings and Drawings, Reynal & Co., 1970). gue of van Gogh's paintings and drawings (L'Oeuvre de Vincent van and as a contribution to further revisions in it. An netTellegen-Hoogen- Gogh, Catalogue Raisonné, 4 vols., Paris-Brussels 1928) is designated doorn of the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie in the throughout by the prefix F. His later, revised catalogue of the paintings Hague, who prepared materials for that publication, kindly supplied alone (Vincent van Coglz, Hyperion Press, Paris-London-lVew York helpful information concerning measurements and provenances prior 1939)is referred to as H. The 1970 'revised, augmented and annotated' to its appearance, and also commented on a preliminary version of the version of those two catalogues (hereafter cited as DLF 1970, where it present text. contains additional information or editorial revisions) re-uses the F References to van Gogh's correspondence, in the text and footnotes numbering for drawings and both the F and H numberings for - that follow, are to the now standard edition of the letters, in the langua- ings, with special numbers of two kinds, interstitial and supplementary, ges in which they were written: VerzameldeBrieven van Vincentvan for additions. Besides numbers in the latter two cases, titles and mea- Gogh, 4 vols. in 2, 1-3 ed. J. van Gogh-Bonger, vol. 4 ed. V. W. van surements (very often revised there) and provenances (much expanded Gogh, - 1955 (abbreviated hereafter VB). English there) are taken from the 1970 edition; color notes (not repeated sub- translation, with some additions: The Complete Letters of Vincent van sequently) and references to the early literature (only spasmodically Cogh, 3 vols., London-New York 1958 (abbreviated CL). In the cita- and unsystematicallyincluded in DLF 1970)from the 1928 edition. tion of specific letters, numbers without prefix indicate letters to Theo, For further comments on the 1970catalogue, justifying the present ar- the prefixes B and W letters to Bernard and to Wil. Translations from ticle together with its first Appendix, see Appdx. C. the letters here are the author's own throughout; van Gogh's original 2. For the meeting, see E. Bernard, '', Mercure de words are cited in the footnotes, from VB,wherever this is relevant. , VII, April 1893, p. 328 (Bernard's earliest statement on the For the dating of the letters of 1888 to Theo, use has been made of subject, made in his preface to the extracts from Vincent's letters to him, J. Hulsker's findings: see his article 'Van Gogh's extatische maanden referred to further below), and the confirmingevidence of fig I (from late in Arles', Maatstaf, VI11, 1960, pp. 315-335,or the summary by M. de 1887, not the summer; Roskill, 1970, p. 258, n. 33) as to their friend- Sabloniere, 'De volgorde van de brieven van Vincent van Gogh aan ship that year. For the self-portrait exchanged-in return for Bernard's zijn broer Theo', Museumjour^naal,VI, 1960,pp. 134-136.For comment Portrait of his Grandmotlrer(Theo van Gogh collection)-see 553, 614. on the value of Hulsker's findings and his table of dates, cf. M. Roskill, F 526 was justifiably assigned to the Paris period by W. Scherjon-J. de 'Van Gogh's " Cart" and his Creative Process', Oud Hollar7d, Gruyter, Vincentvan Gogh's Great Period, Amsterdam 1937(cited here- LXXXI, 1, 1966 (hereafter referred to as Roskill, 1966), p. 4, n. 6, and after as Scherjon-de Gruyter), p. 28, a redating accepted by De La also ibid., Van Goglr, Gatrguirtand the Impressionist Circle, London- Faille, who had previously assigned the work to Arles, in his 1939edi- New York 1970 (hereafter cited as Roskill, 1970), p. 285. The sup- tion ; and it has a provenance going back to Bernard. F 366/H 405, also porting catalogue for the latter book, Van Gogh, Gauguin and French of the Paris period, was identified by De La Faille as the self-portrait in Painting of the 1880s: A Catalogue Raisonné of' Key Works (issued in question-probably on the basis of a provenance going back to Louis xeroxed form by University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan) con- Bernard and its reproduction in Bernard's 1911 edition of the Lettres

142 Each of the two was anxious to keep in touch with what the other was doing. As a result, Bernard- who was in Paris till the end of April 1888 and then in Brittany3-sent Vincent drawings of his in April and late in June. He followed this up with a batch of ten sketches late in July. In September he would send seven further drawings; and early in October he dispatched a suite of twelve brothel-studies4. In reciprocation, Vincent sent off six of his own drawings to Bernard around the third week of July, fol- lowed by nine more soon after. In both cases these drawings were specifically mentioned as being after paintings, and in the second case they were said to be 'sketches of ' which would give Bernard an idea of what nature was like there5.

De La Faille, in his 1928 catalogue of van Gogh's drawings, gave no provenance for any of 1888 going back to Bernard; nor has any track of early ownership leading back to Bernard been added to the record since. And there is only one graphic work of the time which can definitely be said to have gone to Bernard, since it carries a dedication to him: F 1482, the watercolor of the Zouave6 (see below). In this situation, therefore, there might appear to be no basis for identifying, either certainly or prob- ably, any of the fourteen remaining drawings which were sent-and the revised 1970 edition of De La Faille's catalogue adds nothing further on this subject. There are, however, two avenues of approach which De La Faille did not avail himself of (or did not use consistently) as a basis for deduction here7. Each of them requires some explanation. February 1966, nos. 108-116 (where four more of the drawings are (see n. 10 below) as pl. XCVII; but this alternative identification is dis- reproduced). missed in DLF 1970as unfounded, and a provenance given going back 5. See 511 (dated by Hulsker around July 22), along with B10 ;and to the Galerie d' before Louis Bernard's owner- B11of the end of July (after B12, according to a redating suggested in ship (recorded in 1912). Besides F 368, further pre-1888 works with n. 44 below): taxi aujourd'hui envoy6 6 dessins d'apres 6tudes peintes a provenances going back to Emile Bernard are F 207/H 223, Portrait o/' Bernard, je lui en ai promis 6 autres ...' (VB, I11,261) and '... je joins a Womafr,of the Antwerp period, and F 298, The (possibly du- un petit envoi de croquis ... J'ai un envoi [sc. of paintings] qui va par- bious, and perhaps for this reason omitted in H, but accepted in DLF tir et, avant que cela decampe, je veux encore te faire au moins une 1970). Only Vincent's side of the correspondence between him and nouvelle demi-douzaine de motifs, croquis a la plume' (VB, IV, 214-5; Bernard exists; Bernard's letters are lost (information from the Engi- immediately before the last of these passages, Vincent asked Bernard if neer van Gogh). he would consent to produce in exchange drawings after his Breton 3. For the date of Bernard's departure from Paris, see Roskill, 1970, paintings-a point mentioned equally in 511-and said that he was Appdx. E., pp. 268f. (with a suggested redating of B3 to the end of proceeding on the assumption that Bernard would do so, but there is April, after B4). nothing to indicate that Bernard would in fact include in his later dis- 4. See, for Bernard's various dispatches of drawings: (a) B3, with patches any drawings of that kind). For the second batch: 'Je viens de its reference to the receipt of '[les] croquis y inclus [sc. in Bernard's let- t'envoyer aujourd'hui encore 9 croquis, d'apres des 6tudes peintes. De ter] de ta decoration' (cf. n. 3 for the date of this letter), and the cor- cette fagon, tu verras des motifs de cette nature qui inspire le p?re responding reference in 480 (VB, III, 205: 'Bernard m'a dcrit et envoy6 Cezanne; car la Crau, pres d'Aix, c'est a peu pres la meme chose que croquis'); (b) B8, in which Vincent thanked Bernard for his , and les environs de Tarascon et la Crau d'ici. La Camargue est encore plus the corresponding reference in 502 (dated by Hulsker around June 30) simple, car souvent il n'y a plus rien, plus rien que la mauvaise terre to 'un croquis de bordel' received (VB, II, 243); (c) B12 and 514, of the avec des buissons de tamarins et des herbes dures ... Sachant combien end of July; (d) B17 of the second half of September, with its opening tu aimes Cezanne, j'ai pens6 que ces croquis de Provence pourraient te sentence of thanks, and B18 with its reference to one more drawing-in faire plaisir ...' (VB, IV, 215). addition to the 'six autres'-included in Bernard's actual letter; (e) B19 6. Inscribed 'A mon cher copain Emile Bernard, Vincent'. of the first half of October and 545 (dated by Hulsker around Octo- 7. He was in fact rather haphazard about working out from the ber 7). All of the drawings, from amongst those received, which Vin- Letters, or other available information, the earliest owner of a painting cent sent on to his brother can be identified as ones preserved in the or drawing, as this correlates with the provenance that he gave. Only Theo van Gogh collection; see Roskill, 1970, pp. 125ff., 88, 103 and rarely, when there is a definite pointer here, does one find it used or illustrations, and cat., pp. 218-220, 223-224, 226 for supporting argu- signalled in his catalogue entry. For the same point in relation to DLF ments ; cf. also the information contributed to the exhibition cat., 1970, where many additions as to early provenance are incorporated, Gauguin and the Pont-Aven Group, Tate Gallery, London, January- from De La Faille's manuscript notes, see Appdx. C.

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