Adeline Ravoux by Vincent van Gogh

Where? Gallery 222 of the Cleveland Museum of Art
When? 1890
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What do you see? A portrait of Adeline Ravoux, the daughter of the innkeeper from whom Van Gogh rented a room. Adeline wears a blue dress with a high collar, a white bodice under it, and a blue ribbon in her hair. The color of the dress matches her blue eyes. While she was 12 years old when Van Gogh created this painting, she looks much older. This was actually the idea of Van Gogh, as he wanted to portray her as the woman she would become.

Her expression is a bit aggressive or unhappy, which may imply that she hears about her future as a woman. On the right are two white flowers and a series of green leaves floating in the air. The white flowers may symbolize purity and innocence and may also refer to her future as a married woman.

Backstory: Van Gogh created this painting one month before he committed suicide. He based this painting on an earlier work for which Adeline had posed. His idea was to develop a new style of portrait painting. As he wrote to his brother: “I should like to paint portraits which would appear after a century to the people living then as apparitions.” In other words, he wanted to create a ghostlike image of his sitters.

To his sister Van Gogh wrote: “So I don’t try to do us by photographic resemblance but by our passionate expressions, using as a means of expression and intensification of the character our science and modern taste for color.”

Other versions of Adeline Ravoux: Van Gogh made two other portraits of Adeline Ravoux, which are both in private collections. In one portrait of Adeline Ravoux, she is shown from the thighs up. This is the only portrait that he signed as he gave it to Adeline’s family. He created the portrait in a single afternoon. He made a copy of this painting, using lighter colors for the dress, which he gave to his brother Theo. 

Adeline Ravoux (signed) by Van Gogh

Adeline Ravoux (unsigned) by Van Gogh

Who is Adeline Ravoux? She is the daughter of Arthur Gustave Ravoux, who was an innkeeper at Auberge Ravoux in Auvers-sur-Oise, about 20 miles North of Paris. Van Gogh spent the last 70 days of his life in this inn. Adeline Ravoux is prominently featured in the movie Loving Vincent. Van Gogh wrote in a letter that she was probably 16 years old at the time of the painting, but she was actually only 12 or 13 years old.
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Loving Vincent: In 2017, the movie Loving Vincent was released. It is an animated film, based on paintings by Van Gogh. The movie took six years to produce. It takes place one year after the death of Van Gogh and uses characters who Van Gogh painted. As he painted Adeline Ravoux three times, she plays an important role in the movie. The movie was nominated for an Oscar but did not win one.

Auberge Ravoux? Nowadays, Auberge Ravoux is better known as Maison de Van Gogh. It is open to visitors who can see the room in which Van Gogh spent his last nights. Van Gogh spent less than a dollar per day to stay in a room of seven square meters (75 square feet). This fee included meals.

After Van Gogh died, the room was never rented again. There is nothing in that room that remembers of Van Gogh’s stay, which is also reflected in the slogan of the Maison de Van Gogh: “There is nothing to see… but everything to feel.” The picture below shows the Auberge Ravoux in 1890. The person on the left is the owner, Arthur Gustave Ravoux, and Adeline Ravoux is the girl standing in the door opening in the middle.

Photograph of Auberge Ravoux in 1890

Who is Van Gogh? Vincent Willem van Gogh (1857-1890) was a Dutch painter who lived most of his painting career in France. He only started painting seriously in 1881 and created almost 900 paintings, of which he completed most during the last two years of his life. He is a Post-Impressionist painter who created mainly landscapes, portraits, and still lifes.

In 1886, Van Gogh moved to Paris, where he met Paul Gauguin, among others, and these meetings inspired the rest of his painting career. He started to paint more colorful works. Famous works include his series of sunflowers, of which one version is in the National Gallery in London and The Starry Night in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Sunflowers by Van Gogh in the National Gallery

The Starry Night by Van Gogh

Fun fact: Adeline Ravoux has described in a book by Dr. Tralbaut what she remembers of the day that Van Gogh shot himself. In short, she remembered that Van Gogh had lunch at the inn and that nobody noticed anything unusual about him. However, that day, he had borrowed the gun of Gustave Ravoux, the innkeeper, to scare off the crows that would get to close to his canvas while painting in the fields.

​In the evening Van Gogh came back to the inn later than usual, and he quickly went up to his room. When the innkeeper entered his room, he told him that he had shot himself and that he would like to have his pipe and tobacco. He died two days later in the presence of his brother Theo.

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Written by Eelco Kappe

References:

• Reif, Rita (1988), “Van Gogh's 'Adeline Ravoux' Is Sold,” New York Times, May 12, page C.16.
• Robinson, William H., Marcia Steele, and Galina K. Olmsted (2014) “Adeline Ravoux, The Innkeeper’s Daughter,” In Van Gogh: New Research and Perspectives, 4.1-4.10.
• Wilkie, Ken (2004), The Van Gogh File: The Myth and the Man, Souvenir Press, London, UK.