Madame Roulin Rocking the Cradle (La berceuse)
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.)
Classification
oil on canvas
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
27949
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Vincent van Gogh saw in Augustine Roulin—along with her husband, Joseph, and their children—a model of love and family life. In this portrait, Roulin rocks a cradle by pulling on a rope. The title La Berceuse (the lullaby) suggests a consoling figure, and the artist described his palette as a soothing “lullaby in colors.” Van Gogh painted five versions of this image. He completed this one in January 1889, soon after returning from his stay in the hospital following Paul Gauguin’s fraught depart...
About the Artist
Vincent van Gogh · 1853–1890
Vincent Willem van Gogh (1853-1890) stands as one of the most influential figures in Western art history, despite a career spanning merely a decade. Born in Groot-Zundert, Netherlands, to a Protestant pastor's family, van Gogh's path to artistic greatness was anything but conventional. His early adulthood saw him working as an art dealer for Goupil & Cie, a language teacher, and a fervent missiona...