Roulin Special - Part 5/5
Reading time: 4.5 minutes
It was largely thanks to the birth of Marcelle Roulin that her father had time to sit as a model for Vincent in the summer of 1888.
Joseph Roulin’s heavily pregnant wife Augustine had gone to stay with her mother in the nearby village of Lambesc, taking her two sons with her. She planned to have the baby at her mother’s house. The postman’s job meant that he had to stay behind in Arles. Once Madame Roulin and the three children returned, Vincent finally had the opportunity to also paint their portraits.
Vincent painted a total of five portraits of Marcelle: twice with her mother and three times on her own. Marcelle was four months old at the time. The ‘mother and child’ theme held particular appeal for Vincent: ‘If I can get the mother and father to agree to let me paint it, then I'll do a child in a cradle one of these days’, he wrote to his sister.
In the first portraits of Marcelle, we see the baby being held up by her mother, against a yellow background. Vincent probably had to work quickly, as most babies move about a lot. He focused on the most important aspect of the portrait: baby Marcelle’s face, with her chubby cheeks and inquisitive expression. The mother’s hands are a striking element of the composition.
Vincent probably found them difficult to paint: the fingers on the left hand in the first portrait look somewhat unnatural, and the right hand is sketchy. Augustine’s hands seem oddly positioned in relation to her body, as if it was added to the painting at a later stage.
This suspicion is reinforced by the way Madame Roulin’s face and hairdo have been applied wet-in-wet on the background. They are nearly the same colour and texture as the background itself, but Vincent used a few green lines to define the contours of her face.
Vincent van Gogh, Madame Roulin and her baby, 1888, oil on canvas, 63,5 × 50,8 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
Vincent van Gogh, Madame Augustine Roulin and Baby Marcelle, 1888, oil on canvas, 92.4 × 73.5 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art. Bequest of Lisa Norris Elkins, 1950
Following this first double portrait, Vincent painted a second version, on a larger canvas. In this new work, he aimed to improve the composition. Augustine sits in a chair with Marcelle on her lap, looking directly at us.
The relationship between the two figures appears more natural here, although the focus is less on Marcelle in this composition. Vincent initially painted the background pale blue, as he had in the earlier portraits of the postman. But he apparently was not satisfied with the colour, as he painted over it in yellow while the paint was still wet.
After the two portraits of the mother and child, Vincent painted one of Marcelle on her own. She is wearing the same white clothing as in the double portrait with her mother, but this time more details are visible, such as gold jewellery: a bracelet and a pinky ring.
These are traditional baptism gifts, which suggests that Vincent saw Marcelle again after making the first study. The jewellery is not visible in the first two portraits, perhaps because Marcelle had not yet been baptised.
Vincent van Gogh, Marcelle Roulin, 1888, oil on canvas, 34.3 × 23.5 cm, Asian private collection
Vincent van Gogh, Marcelle Roulin, 1888, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
Vincent van Gogh, Marcelle Roulin, 1888, oil on canvas, 35 × 23,9 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Chester Dale Collection. Photo: with thanks to National Gallery of Art, Washington
In this portrait, Vincent used soft, complementary colours. The pale green background enhances the rosy cheeks and chubby arms. He once again had to work quickly to capture the wriggling infant. In the first version, you can see how he tried to achieve the correct form.
In the subsequent two repetitions, he was able to easily add details such as the eyebrows and eyelids. The greenish tint in Marcelle’s face in the second repetition is not a deliberate choice by the artist, but the unintentional result of discoloration.
As with the portraits of the other children, the Roulin family received a version as a token of thanks for posing for Vincent. In this case, it was the first version. Vincent considered it a study, and made an ‘improved’ repetition to send to Theo: the painting that is now in the Van Gogh Museum collection.
The painting of Marcelle was a favourite of both Theo and Jo. Not long after Vincent sent the portrait, Jo became pregnant. After the birth, Theo wrote that their son had the same blue eyes and chubby cheeks as the baby in the portrait.
Joseph Roulin was also very pleased with the portraits, especially after he was transferred to Marseille and spent a long time apart from his family. He wrote to Vincent that thanks to him, Marcelle could ‘say hello to my Portrait every evening and morning, for they are hanging in the alcove where she sleeps, she rests in peace under the benevolent gaze of both the wife and the Father.’
Nine years after Marcelle was born, the postman and his wife had another daughter: Cornélie (1897). After Joseph died in Marseille in 1903, Augustine returned to Lambesc with their two daughters, then aged 15 and 6. Less than a year later, Cornélie passed away.
Marcelle lived with her mother until she married in 1908. She had a daughter, Rose-Renée, and moved to Paris, where Augustine later joined them. After Augustine’s death in 1930, Marcelle remained in the house with her daughter. The two eventually returned to the South of France. Marcelle died there in 1980, at the age of 92.
Photo of Marcelle Roulin at the age of 67, 1955
Of all the Roulin children, Marcelle lived the longest. Much of what we know about the family has survived thanks to the stories she passed on. Camille, Armand and Marcelle’s daughter Rose-Renée all remained childless, so there are no direct descendants of the Roulin family.
The 26 portraits that Vincent painted of the Roulins became scattered around the world. A large number of the portraits have been brought together for the first time in the exhibition Van Gogh and the Roulins. Together Again at Last, on view at the Van Gogh Museum from 3 October 2025 to 11 January 2026.
