576 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, December 1887.

metadata

No. 576 (Brieven 1990 -, Complete Letters -)
From: Paul Gauguin
To: Vincent van Gogh
Date: Paris, December 1887

Source status

Original manuscript

Location

Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, inv. no. b882 V/1962

Date

On the basis of the kind of paper and the handwriting, Merlhès dates the letter to December 1887. See Merlhès 1989, p. 56. This dating is supported by the contents of the letter: the exchange, which was prompted by the exhibition held in Restaurant du Chalet (see letter 640) and Gauguin’s remark that he is seldom in Montmartre (at the time he was living at Schuffenecker’s in rue Boulard; see n. 3). We have therefore adopted the same dating.

Additional

Cooper assumed that this letter was addressed to Theo. See Gauguin lettres 1983, p. 180 (GAC 24).

original text

1r:1

Cher Monsieur

En venant de ma part vous trouverez chez Cluzel encadreur Rue Fontaine1 un tableau que j’ai remis à votre intention (pour notre échange).2 Si il ne vous convenait pas faites m’en part en venant vous-même choisir. Excusez-moi si je ne viens pas moi-même chercher les vôtres, je vais si peu dans votre quartier.3 Je les prendrai 19 Boulev^d Montmartre4 si vous voulez bien les déposer à cet endroit.–

Tout à vous –

Paul Gauguin

translation

1r:1

Dear Sir,

If you come on my behalf you will find at Cluzel’s, the framer in rue Fontaine,1 a painting that I have delivered for you (for our exchange).2 If you do not consider it suitable, let me know, and come and choose yourself. Forgive me if I do not come to collect your paintings myself, I am so rarely in your part of town.3 I shall collect them from 19 boulevard Montmartre4 if you will be so kind as to leave them there.

Yours,

Paul Gauguin

notes

1. The frame-maker Pierre Cluzel had his shop at 33 rue Fontaine Saint-Georges, in Montmartre. See Frédéric Destremau, ‘Pierre Cluzel (1850-1894), encadreur de Redon, Pissarro, Degas, Lautrec, Anquetin, Gauguin’, Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire de l’Art Français 1995, pp. 239-247.

2. As a result of the exhibition held in Restaurant du Chalet in November-December 1887 (see letter 640), Van Gogh exchanged his Sunflowers gone to seed (F 375 / JH 1329 ) and Sunflowers gone to seed (F 376 / JH 1331 ) for Gauguin’s On the shore of the lake, Martinique, 1887 (W252/W222) (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum) Ill. 100 . See Annet Tellegen, ‘Vincent en Gauguin’, Museumjournaal 11 (1966), pp. 42-45. Cf. also letters 653 and 736.

3. Gauguin had been staying since his return from Martinique in mid-November 1887 with Emile Schuffenecker, 29 rue Boulard. This street is located in the south of Paris, below Montparnasse, and was therefore quite some distance from Montmartre, where the Van Gogh brothers lived.

4. The art dealers Boussod, Valadon et Cie, for whom Theo worked, had their gallery at 19 boulevard Montmartre.