Not mentioned in the letters. Probably executed in June 1890 soon after van Gogh's arrival at Auvers. It represents a view from Auvers looking across the Oise towards Méry and the Paris road; the old bridge of Auvers (now replaced by a more modern structure) is on the right. The view is taken from the top of a high and very steep embankment above the railway line, the plumy forms in the bottom right-hand corner being probably suggested by the smoke of a passing train. The scene is still remarkably similar, with cattle grazing in the fields below, but it seems that the tall trees along the river bank may have been an invention of van Gogh's for compositional purposes. There is no trace of big trees thereabouts today and they look as though they were sketched in as an afterthought.

Examination of the edges of this drawing, where the colours have been protected by the mount, shows that most of the strokes of gouache which are now whitish were originally pink. The fading has particularly affected the sky and has led to a colouristic imbalance in the composition. In the original edition of de la Faille's catalogue, published in 1928, the roofs are described as vermilion, and the sky as pink, striped with white.

Published in:
Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, pp.293-4, reproduced p.293

Rachel Taylor
September 2003