Self-Portrait with Portrait of Gauguin
Currently on view
Emile Bernard (1868 - 1941), Pont-Aven, 1888
oil on canvas, 46 cm x 56 cm
Credits (obliged to state): Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
Bernard painted this self-portrait in the French seaside village of Pont-Aven. He was working there with Paul Gauguin (shown in the background of the picture). A Japanese woodcut print is visible at bottom right.
Van Gogh had asked his two friends to make portraits of each other. But Bernard didn’t dare: he was only 20 and intimidated by Gauguin, who was twice his age. So each of them sent a self-portrait featuring a sketch of the other. Beside his signature, Bernard wrote a dedication to his friend (‘copain’) Van Gogh. The added ‘g’ at the end of ‘copain’ was a joke about the local accent in Provence, where Van Gogh was living.
- Object number
- s0206V1962
- Dimensions
- 46 cm x 56 cm, 60.5 cm x 69.5 cm
- Provenance
- Exchanged by the artist with Vincent van Gogh, 4 or 5 October 1888; left by Vincent van Gogh at the apartment of his brother Theo van Gogh, Paris; after his death on 25 January 1891, inherited by his widow, Jo van Gogh-Bonger, and their son, Vincent Willem van Gogh, Paris; administered until her death on 2 September 1925 by Jo van Gogh-Bonger, Bussum/Amsterdam/Laren; transferred by Vincent Willem van Gogh, Laren, to the Vincent van Gogh Foundation, Amsterdam, 10 July 1962; agreement concluded between the Vincent van Gogh Foundation and the State of the Netherlands, in which the preservation and management of the collection, and its placing in the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, to be realized in Amsterdam, is entrusted to the State, 21 July 1962; on permanent loan to the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh from the opening of the museum on 2 June 1973, and at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, since 1 July 1994.
- artist
- Emile Bernard
- Credits (obliged to state)
- Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, Van Goghs brieven. De kunstenaar aan het woord, 9 October 2009 - 3 January 2010
Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, Van Gogh en Gauguin. Het atelier van het zuiden, 9 February 2002 - 2 June 2002, no. 27
Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, Theo van Gogh 1857-1891. Kunsthandelaar, verzamelaar en broer van Vincent, 24 June 1999 - 5 September 1999, no. 170
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Emile Bernard, 24 August 1990 - 4 November 1990, no. 56
Mary Anne Stevens...[et al.], Emile Bernard 1868-1941 : a pioneer of modern art = ein Wegbereiter der Moderne, cop. 1990, pp. 49, 98, 198-200
Ed. by E. van Uitert and M. Hoyle; with contrib. from H. van Crimpen ... [et al.], The Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, 1987, p. 98-99, 308-309
essay by Bogomila Welsh-Ovcharov, Emile Bernard (1868-1941) : the theme of bordellos and prostitutes in turn-of-the-century French art, 1988, p. 16
Juleke van Lindert, Evert van Uitert, Een eigentijdse expressie : Vincent van Gogh en zijn portretten, cop. 1990, pp. 116-117
