Portrait of Adeline Ravoux

Appreciation

Portrait of Adeline Ravoux Nederland Vincent van Gogh Gallery and Appreciation

During his time in Auvers, Van Gogh rented a room at the inn of Arthur Ravoux, whose sixteen-year-old daughter sat for three paintings. Van Gogh depicts Adeline, rather than a photographic resemblance, with "impassioned aspects" of contemporary life through the "modern taste for color." Van Gogh wrote to his brother: “Last week I did a portrait of a girl about sixteen, in blue against a blue background, the daughter of the people with whom I am staying. I have given her this portrait, but I made a variation of it for you, a size 15 canvas."

Adeline Ravoux was asked sixty-six years later what she remembered of Van Gogh. Before he painted her portrait, van Gogh had only made polite exchanges of conversation with Adeline. One day, though, he asked her if she would be pleased if he were to do her portrait. After obtaining her parents permission, she sat one afternoon in which he completed the painting. He smoked continually on his pipe as he worked, and thanked her for sitting very still. She was very proud to sit for the painting she described as a "symphony in blue". Van Gogh thought she was sixteen, but she was just thirteen years of age at the time. Adeline sat just once, but three paintings were made of her:

For the sitting, Adeline was dressed in a blue dress, the background was blue and her hair ribbon was blue.

Van Gogh made a copy of the original painting for his brother, with slightly different shades of blue.

In a slightly different pose or aspect, Adeline appears against a background of roses, portions of a still life of roses (F595) that he completed just a few days prior to this painting. This painting is owned by the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Neither she nor her parents appreciated Van Gogh's style and were disappointed that it was not true to life. Yet, even though Adeline was a young girl at the time, pictures of her as a young woman showed that van Gogh painted her as she would become.

Portrait of Adeline Ravoux is also the same Groups of Vincent van Gogh's painting.