Marguerite Gachet al pianoforte

Van Gogh painted this in the last weeks of his life. He had come to Auvers-sur-Oise, north of Paris, in May 1890 to be under the eye of Dr Paul Gachet, and in late June he set up in front of the doctor's daughter Marguerite, then 21, at her piano. The tall narrow canvas holds her upright in a white dress against a wall stippled with green, the floor dotted with red, the whole surface pulled tight like a chord. He wrote to his brother Theo about it with real pleasure and hoped to paint her again beside a small organ. He shot himself about five weeks later and died on the 29th of July.