These large-scale works include many of his finest late paintings. Strenuous efforts were made to try to unite all 13 of Van Gogh’s “double-square” canvases (0.5m x 1m). These include Garden in Auvers-sur-Oise (June 1890), which is much more stylised than most of his landscapes, and Vase with Red Poppies, Cornflowers and Daisies (June 1890). Seven are from private lenders, which means that they are rarely shown. The remaining 32 Auvers paintings are from collections around the world. These Gachet works have only been lent very rarely, so the Amsterdam show will be an extremely unusual opportunity to see them in a wider context. The Van Gogh Museum has nine in its permanent collection and there are seven at the Musée d’Orsay, the latter from the early 1950s donation by Dr Paul Gachet, who cared for the artist in his last weeks. Of the 74 Auvers paintings, 48 will be included. The Amsterdam and Paris museums have been astonishingly successful in corralling the loans. Perhaps growing depression (and the larger size of some of the later pictures) accounts for a fall-off in the following four weeks.

Excluding weekends, this works out at two a day, an amazing production. The exhibition curators have meticulously dated all his surviving 74 Auvers paintings, determining that “by the end of six weeks, the total stood at roughly sixty paintings”. Van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise: His Final Months will be presented in Amsterdam (12 May-3 September) and later in Paris, at the Musée d’Orsay (3 October-4 February 2024). Van Gogh’s Tree Roots (July 1890), painted on the day that he shot himselfĬredit: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

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