Scala ad Auvers

Van Gogh painted this in the summer of 1890, in the last weeks of his life. In May he had left the asylum in the south and settled in Auvers-sur-Oise, a village north of Paris, under the eye of Doctor Gachet, a physician who looked after him and collected art. In a little over two months there he made about 70 paintings, working at a furious pace, and this village stairway with its flowering chestnuts and figures on the path is one of them. The road, the steps and the trees all seem to ripple with the same restless line. He died at the end of July, and pictures like this one passed first to his brother Theo and then stayed in the family.