The Red Vineyard

In early October 1888, Vincent van Gogh wrote, “I have to go work in the vineyard near Montmajour. It is all purple, yellow-green under the blue sky, a beautiful pattern of color.” At the end of the month, he walked through the vineyard and, the next day, comfortably installed in the yellow house in Arles, he painted this strikingly colorful grape harvest scene from memory. In January 1890, at an exhibition in Brussels, Anna Boch, an artist and collector, bought The Red Vineyard for 400 francs. Unexpectedly, the painting entered history because it was the only work Van Gogh sold during his lifetime.