Still Life with Bloaters

Vincent van Gogh

Contemporary-Art.org
Keywords: LifeBloaters

Work Overview

Still Life with Bloaters also Still Life: The Saurs Herrings
1886
Kunstmuseum, Basel, Switzerland


Anecdotally, one cold Parisian day Van Gogh, dressed more like a cattle drover than an urban artist, peddled a painting of pink shrimp on pink paper to a shopkeeper who sold old ironworks and inexpensive oil paintings. Out of charity, the man gave the hungry Van Gogh five francs (less than a dollar). Out on the street, Van Gogh saw a prostitute who had recently escaped from Prison Saint-Lazare. With thoughts of the novel about a prostitute, "La Fille Elisa" by Edmond de Goncourt, Van Gogh gave her the five francs and quickly moved on his way.[60] The novel appears in Van Gogh's Still Life with Books (F335).