Object Image

Café at Arles

The figure in the foreground is Madame Ginoux, wife of the owner of a café by the railway station. It was located right across from Van Gogh’s apartment in Arles, where Paul Gauguin stayed for a few months in 1888.

The model appears in the same pose as other works, and we can see a feeble Mona Lisa-like smile on her face. The formal reason for this smile is Madame Ginoux’s professional hospitality: she has just brought absinthe for the painter and is inviting him to sit with her at the table.

However, the gloomy atmosphere of the smoky café, where drunkards and prostitutes often met (and about which Van Gogh once said: “Here one can commit suicide, a crime or go crazy”), hint at a different i...

1888
Oil on canvas
72.0 x 92.0cm
3367

Where you'll find this

Deepen your knowledge