In May 1890, fresh from a
self-imposed stay at an insane asylum, Vincent Van Gogh arrived
in the little village of Auvers-sur-Oise, about 20 miles outside
of Paris. He found modest board and accommodation at the Auberge
Ravoux, moving into an attic room and living there peacefully,
painting and always smoking his pipe, until his death two months
later, in that same room.
Adeline, one of the daughters of
the Ravoux family, sat for him. Her portrait, a girl in blue on
a blue background, did not please her very much then, although
modern eyes have found more to value. As an old woman, Adeline
recalled that Monsieur Vincent had not been a difficult boarder.
"I have no memory of M. Vincent repeatedly missing the meals
that he regularly took at our place.... The menu was typical for
meals at the time in restaurants: meat, vegetables, salad,
dessert."
It wasn't Van Gogh's usual diet,
as described in his copious letters to his ever-patient brother
Theo. He seemed to subsist on a diet of coffee and bread for
weeks on end while he devoted his meager funds to paint and
materials. In fact, one of the main charms of the Auberge Ravoux
for him was that it was very, very cheap.
That's probably not the case
today, as the Auberge exists partly as a shrine to the troubled
artist, and also as a restaurant. Not long after Van Gogh's
death, the acclaim for his work that eluded him all his life
arose, and people began to make pilgrimages to visit his room.
In 1926, it was renamed Maison de Van Gogh. It survived many
owners and incarnations until a Belgian owner took over in 1985,
restoring the auberge to something resembling its former dignity
(an elderly lady, invited for the reopening, delighted the owner
by asking, "When are you going to start?"). What's more, a chef
was added who could create the classic peasant dishes of the
auberge's earlier days. |
