Van Gogh was a lifelong admirer of the work of Charles-François Daubigny. This celebrated landscape painter had lived in Auvers. So when Vincent arrived in the village, he went to see Daubigny's home and garden as soon as he could. This is Van Gogh's first painting of the garden. He later made two larger ones on canvas.
   Because Van Gogh did not have any canvas at hand, he painted the garden on a red and white striped tea towel. He first covered the towel with a bright pink ground layer of lead-white pigment mixed with red. This pink base formed a vivid contrast with the green paint he used for the garden. The ground layer is visible between the strokes of paint. The red pigment has faded over time, so the pink base now looks grey.

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   Van Gogh came to Auvers-sur-Oise, a little village around 30 kilometers from Paris, on May 20, 1890. Auvers was an artists’ village, where painters such as Armand Guillaumin, Camille Pissarro and Paul Cézanne had already worked. Charles Daubigny, a painter Van Gogh much admired, had also moved there around 1860. At the time of Van Gogh’s arrival, his widow still occupied their house.

   Daubigny’s property included a large garden which Van Gogh would eventually paint a number of times. This impressionistic view depicts only a small part of the enclosure, and is a study for two larger paintings he later made of the whole terrain.

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