On the Banks of the River at Martinique

In December 1887, a month after coming home from the Caribbean, Gauguin swapped this canvas with Vincent van Gogh for two of his sunflower still lifes. Neither man handed it over in person. Gauguin left the painting with a frame maker, Vincent deposited the sunflowers at a gallery. Vincent then described his new picture to his sister Willemien: a dried up river with purple mud and pools reflecting pure cobalt, green grass, a boy with a red and white cow. Gauguin had probably watched scenes like this at a shallow stream near Anse Turin, where he and his companion Charles Laval had lived in a hut about two kilometres south of the town of Saint Pierre. Saint Pierre was the busiest port on Martinique then. In 1902 the eruption of Mount Pelee destroyed it completely.