The Red Vineyard

Vincent van Gogh

Oil on canvas

Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts

The Red Vineyard (also known as The Red Vineyards near Arles) is an oil painting executed on burlap in early November 1888, during Van Gogh's intensely productive period in Arles, southern France. The composition depicts agricultural workers harvesting grapes beneath a blazing autumnal sun, with the vines rendered in fiery crimson hues, a luminous yellow-green sky, and a glistening wet road running along the right edge of the canvas. Van Gogh, a Dutch Post-Impressionist, painted the scene from memory in his studio after observing the vineyard on a late afternoon walk, applying his characteristic bold, expressive brushwork and vivid chromatic contrasts. The painting holds an exceptional place in art history as the only work known by name to have been sold by Van Gogh during his lifetime, purchased in 1890 by Belgian artist and collector Anna Boch for 400 francs at the exhibition of Les Vingt in Brussels.