The Yellow House, alternatively named The Street, is an 1888 oil painting by the 19th-century Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh. The house was the right wing of 2 Place Lamartine, Arles, France, where, on May 1, 1888, Van Gogh rented four rooms. He occupied two large ones on the ground floor to serve as an atelier and kitchen, and on the first floor, two smaller ones facing Place Lamartine. The window on the first floor near the corner with both shutters open is that of Van Gogh's guest room, where Paul Gauguin lived for nine weeks from late October 1888. Behind the next window, with one shutter closed, is Van Gogh's bedroom. The two small rooms at the rear were rented by Van Gogh at a later time. Van Gogh indicated that the restaurant where he used to have his meals was in the building painted pink close to the left edge of the painting. It was run by Widow Venissac, who was also Van Gogh's landlady, and who owned several of the other buildings depicted. To the right of the Yellow House, the Avenue Montmajour runs down to the two railway bridges. The first line, with a train just passing, served the local connection to Lunel, which is on the opposite bank of river Rhône. The other line was owned by the P.-L.-M. Railway Company. In the left foreground is an indication of the corner of the pedestrian walk which surrounded one of the public gardens on Place Lamartine. The ditch running up Avenue Montmajour from the left towards the bridges served the gas pipe, which allowed Van Gogh a little later to have gaslight installed in his atelier. The building was severely damaged in a bombing raid by the Allies on June 25, 1944, and was later demolished.
Genesis
The painting was executed in September 1888, at which time Van Gogh sent a sketch of the composition to his brother Theo:. Initially, Van Gogh titled the painting as The House and its environment. Later he opted for a more meaningful title and called it The Street, paying homage to a suite of sketches showing streets in Paris, by Jean-François Raffaëlli, and recently published in Le Figaro. : The House of Van Gogh, 1932. Watercolour, private collection.
Pedigree
This painting never left the artist's estate. Since 1962, it has been in the possession of the Vincent van Gogh Foundation, established by Vincent Willem van Gogh, the artist's nephew, and on permanent loan to the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.
Since the 1940s
The Yellow House itself no longer exists. It was severely damaged in bombing-raids during the Second World War, and later demolished. The place without the house looks almost the same. A placard on the scene commemorates its former existence.
