The Bedroom

CC0 Public Domain Designation

Painting and Sculpture of Europe

1889

Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890)

Vincent van Gogh so highly esteemed his bedroom painting that he made three distinct versions: the first, now in the collection of the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; the second, belonging to the Art Institute of Chicago, painted a year later on the same scale and almost identical; and a third, smaller canvas in the collection of the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, which he made as a gift for his mother and sister. Van Gogh conceived the first Bedroom in October 1888, a month after he moved into his “Yellow House” in Arles, France. This moment marked the first time the artist had a home of his own, and he had immediately and enthusiastically set about decorating, painting a suite of canvases to fill the walls. Completely exhausted from the effort, he spent two-and-a-half days in bed and was then inspired to create a painting of his bedroom. As he wrote to his brother Theo, “It amused me enormously doing this bare interior. With a simplicity à la Seurat. In ﬂat tints, but coarsely brushed in full impasto, the walls pale lilac, the ﬂoor in a broken and faded red, the chairs and the bed chrome yellow, the pillows and the sheet very pale lemon green, the bedspread blood-red, the dressing-table orange, the washbasin blue, the window green. I had wished to express utter repose with all these very different tones.” Although the picture symbolized relaxation and peace to the artist, to our eyes the canvas seems to teem with nervous energy, instability, and turmoil, an effect heightened by the sharply receding perspective.

Status: On loan to National Gallery in London for Vincent van Gogh: Poets and Lovers
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Vincent van Gogh
Title: The Bedroom
Place: Saint-Rémy-de-Provence (Object made in)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1889
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 73.6 × 92.3 cm (29 × 36 5/8 in.); Framed: 88.9 × 108 × 8.9 cm (35 × 42 1/2 × 3 1/2 in.)
Credit Line: Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection
Reference Number: 1926.417
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/28560/manifest.json

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J[acob]-B[aart] de la Faille, L’Oeuvre de Vincent van Gogh: catalogue raisonné (Berlin: G. van Ouest, 1928), vol. 1, 138, no. 484; vol. 2, pl. 134.
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Janice Feldstein and Maureen Smith, The Art Institute of Chicago: 100 Masterpieces (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago; distributed by Rand McNally, 1978), 116–17 (color ill.), no. 69.
Robert H. Pelfrey and Mary Hall-Pelfrey, Art and Mass Media (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), 126 pl. 18, 182–83 fig. 7.23), 184.
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Mark Rosenthal, The Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection, 1945 to 1995, exh. cat. (Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, 1996), 123–29 fig. 11.
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Paris, Galerie Vollard, 1895, no cat.
Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Vincent van Gogh, Mar. 15–31, 1901, cat. 19, as La Chambre de Vincent à Arles.
Vienna Secession, Internationalen Kunstschau, May–Oct. 1909, room 14, cat. 1, as Das Schlafzimmer.
Berlin, Paul Cassirer, Zehnte Ausstellung: Vincent van Gogh: 30 März 1853–29 Juli 1890, May–June 1914, cat. 53, as Das Schlafzimmer.
New York, Museum of Modern Art, First Loan Exhibition: Cézanne, Gauguin, Seurat, Van Gogh, Nov. 7–Dec. 7, 1929, cat. 79, as Van Gogh’s Room at Arles (La Chambre à Arles).
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, June 1–Nov. 1, 1933, cat. 376.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, June 1–Nov. 1, 1934, cat. 310.
Toledo Museum of Art, French Impressionists and Post Impressionists, Nov. 1934, cat. 24.
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Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, Vincent van Gogh Paintings, Mar. 30–July 29, 1990, cat. 7.
Essen, Museum Folkwang, Vincent van Gogh und die Moderne 1890–1914, Aug. 11–Nov. 4, 1990, cat. 40, as Das Schlafzimmer; Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, Nov. 16, 1990–Feb. 18, 1991.
Art Institute of Chicago, Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South, Sep. 22, 2001–Jan. 13, 2002, cat. 120.
Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, Van Gogh and Expressionism, Nov. 24, 2006-Mar. 2, 2007; New York, Neue Gallery, Mar. 23-July 2, 2007 [New York only].
Fort Worth, TX, Kimbell Museum of Art, The Impressionists: Master Paintings from the Art Institute of Chicago, June 29–Nov. 2, 2008, cat. 58.
Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, Van Gogh at Work, Sep. 1, 2013 - Jan. 13, 2014, cat. 266.
Art Institute of Chicago, Van Gogh’s Bedrooms, Feb. 14–May 10, 2016, no cat. no., plate 26.
Detroit Institute of Art, Van Gogh and America, Oct. 2, 2022 - Jan. 22, 2023, cat. 53.
London, National Gallery, Vincent van Gogh: Poets and Lovers, Sep. 14, 2024–Jan. 19, 2025, fig. 95.

The artist; sent to his brother, Theo van Gogh (died 1891), Paris, Dec. 18, 1889 [Letter 829 from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Dec. 19, 1889, notes that The Bedroom was sent the day before]; by descent to Johanna van Gogh-Bonger (died 1925), the Netherlands, 1891; sold to Jos Hessel, Paris, by 1901 [Paris 1901]. Carl Reininghaus, Vienna, by 1909, to at least 1914 [Vienna 1909; Berlin 1914]. Paul Rosenberg, Paris and New York, by 1926; sold to Frederic Clay Bartlett, Chicago, Dec. 1926 [receipt and correspondence in curatorial object file]; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1926.

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On loan to National Gallery in London for Vincent van Gogh: Poets and Lovers

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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On loan to National Gallery in London for Vincent van Gogh: Poets and Lovers

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

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