Marguerite Gachet (21 June 1869 – 8 November 1949) was a French woman who was painted by

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...

in two paintings.

Life

Gachet was born in 1869 to

Paul Gachet Paul-Ferdinand Gachet (30 July 1828 – 9 January 1909) was a French physician most famous for treating the painter Vincent van Gogh during his last weeks in Auvers-sur-Oise. Gachet was a great supporter of artists and the Impressionist movement ...

and his wife. Her younger brother was born at the family's new home in Auvers-sur-Oise. She met Van Gogh when she was nineteen. He painted her in the family garden on 1 June 1890. He came to stay with her father,

for several weeks towards the end of his life. Her father was a doctor, an amateur artist and a friend of leading impressionist painters.

Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically d ...

had helped her father create an attic studio. The date of Van Gogh's painting of her is certain as one of Van Gogh's frequent letters to his brother, Theo, details the painting. Vincent describes the cypresses and flowers in Dr Gachet's garden and the "white figure" he included. For some weeks Van Gogh proposed that would he make a painting of her. He made two sketches of Gachet at the piano, and again he wrote to his brother on 26/27 June to tell him that he had started the painting. Van Gogh commented to his brother that he thought that Theo's wife, Jo, would get on well with Marguerite. The paintings appeared in catalogues in 1928 but they were owned privately. Van Gogh gave both of the paintings to Gachet's father who kept them. The paintings were first exhibited after they were donated by Paul Gachet in 1954 to the Mussee d'Orsay in Paris. Gachet never married and she died in 1949. She was buried in the

Père Lachaise Cemetery Père Lachaise Cemetery (french: Cimetière du Père-Lachaise ; formerly , "East Cemetery") is the largest cemetery in Paris, France (). With more than 3.5 million visitors annually, it is the most visited necropolis in the world. Notable figure ...

. The pictures of her and many other valuable family paintings were given to a museum – her brother got the credit.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gachet, Marguerite 1869 births 1949 deaths French artists' models French female models