print
- Museum number
- 1923,0711.1
- Title
- Object: L'Homme à la pipe
- Description
-
Portrait of Dr Gachet, half-length, smoking a pipe, sitting in front of a fence. 1890
Etching
- Production date
- 1890
- Dimensions
-
Height: 180 millimetres
-
Width: 148 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- See Sjaar van Heugten and Fieke Pabst, 'The Graphic Work of Vincent van Gogh', Van Gogh Museum 1995, cat.10. It is the only etching made by van Gogh. The plate was made when Dr Gachet, an amateur etcher, pressed a plate into van Gogh's hands after lunch. Gachet himself bit and printed the plate, which remained in his possession (it is now in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris). Some 61 impressions are known, many of which (like this one) have Gachet's stamp printed on them. This impression was presented by his son Paul, who must have printed it (or possibly had it printed for him by Eugène Delâtre). Other impressions in the UK are in the V&A (Circ.125-1950), and the Wellcome Institute collection.
The correct date of the plate is almost certainly 15 June 1890, when van Gogh ate Sunday lunch with the Gachet family, and the wrong date was added by Gachet himself in drypoint at a later stage. Gachet is shown seated in the garden of his house.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
2006 Mar-Jun, Warwick, Compton Verney, 'Van Gogh and Britain: Pioneer Collectors'
2006 Jul-Sep, Edinburgh, N G of Scotland, 'Van Gogh and Britain: Pioneer Collectors'
2016-2017 15 Sep-15 Jan, London, Wellcome Collection, Bedlam: the asylum and beyond
2020, 20 February – 9 August, London, BM, G90, ‘French Impressions: prints from Manet to Cézanne’ (on display until 23 March 2020 - exhibition closed due to COVID)
- Acquisition date
- 1923
- Acquisition notes
- See letter from donor dated 10 July 1923 in Letterbook, stating that he is pleased to learn that the British Museum will accept this print, presented in memory of his father Dr Paul Gachet and Vincent van Gogh.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1923,0711.1
