Vincent van Gogh – The Night Café

The Night Café is the painting Vincent van Gogh made in Arles in September 1888: the inside of the all-night Café de la Gare, with blood-red walls, a green ceiling, four gas lamps, a billiard table in the middle and a few late guests slumped at the tables. The original measures 72.4 x 92.1 cm and hangs in the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, USA. We paint it by hand in oil on canvas, in 17 sizes from 50 x 40 to 150 x 120 cm or to your own measurements, and send you a photograph of the finished painting to approve before dispatch.

The Night Café – Vincent van Gogh

What does The Night Café show?

The painting shows the inside of the Café de la Gare in Arles late at night. The room is seen from slightly above, so the yellow floorboards rise steeply towards the back. The upper walls are red, the ceiling green, and four gas lamps hang from it, each ringed with circles of yellow and orange light. In the middle stands a billiard table with a long shadow on the floor, and beside it, facing you, a man in a white suit.

Along the walls sit a few late guests, some slumped over their glasses. At the back there is a bar with bottles and pink flowers, a clock and a half-curtained doorway; in the foreground, an empty chair.

How did Van Gogh paint The Night Café?

Van Gogh painted it in the first days of September 1888 in the café itself, an all-night establishment at 30 Place Lamartine in Arles, run by Joseph-Michel and Marie Ginoux. In August he had written that he would start on the interior, lit by gas in the evening. He then sat up for three nights in a row to paint it, sleeping during the day.

Marie Ginoux later posed for L’Arlésienne, painted by both Van Gogh and Gauguin, and Gauguin painted the same café as the background of his portrait of her, now in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.

What do the red and green in The Night Café mean?

The colours carry the meaning. Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo: “I have tried to express the terrible passions of humanity by means of red and green.” He described the room as blood red and dark yellow, with a green billiard table in the middle, and the café as a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad or commit a crime. The Yale University Art Gallery notes that the clashing reds and greens and the thick patches of saturated yellow create an aura of restlessness.

He chose these colours to express a feeling, not to match what he saw, and even called the canvas one of the ugliest he had done, comparing it with The Potato Eaters. The painting records a mood more than a place: a warm, bright room that still feels lonely.

Where does the original hang, and how did it get there?

The original hangs in the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. The museum lists it as Le café de nuit (The Night Café), 1888, oil on canvas, 72.4 x 92.1 cm, object number 1961.18.34, a bequest of Stephen Carlton Clark. Van Gogh signed it “Vincent” and wrote the title, le café de nuit, beneath his name.

Van Gogh gave it to Theo in 1889; in 1891 it passed to Theo’s widow, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, and in 1907 to the Paris gallery Bernheim-Jeune. After the Soviet state nationalised the Morozov collection in 1918 and sold the painting in 1933, Clark bought it through M. Knoedler & Co. A later claim by an heir of Morozov was rejected by the courts.

The Night Café or Café Terrace at Night – which painting is which?

Both were painted in Arles in 1888 and both show a café at night, so they are easily confused. The Night Café shows the inside of the Café de la Gare on the Place Lamartine, with red walls and a green ceiling under gaslight. Café Terrace at Night shows a different, larger café on the Place du Forum from the outside, its yellow terrace under a starry sky. Choose The Night Café for a strong, warm interior in deep red and green; choose the terrace for an outdoor night scene with stars.

The Night Café also belongs with the paintings Van Gogh made for his home in Arles: he soon included it in his decoration for The Yellow House. From the same Arles period come Bedroom in Arles and Starry Night over the Rhône, another night scene, this time outdoors by the river. We paint all of them by hand as well.

How is our hand-painted The Night Café made?

The painter first draws the room in perspective: the floorboards running back towards the doorway, the billiard table, the bar and the tables along the walls. Then come the large areas of red and green, laid on in several layers so that they stay intense, then the yellow floor, and last the lamps with their rings of light, the figures, the glasses and the bottles. Our oil painting reproduction is painted by hand in oil on canvas with real impasto: the paint goes on thickly, so the brushstrokes stand up from the canvas as in the original.

On this painting the relief shows most in the halos around the lamps, painted as short circling strokes, and in the floorboards, where Van Gogh laid the yellow in long, thick lines. A print shows only a flat surface; on our painting the strokes are real.

Every painting is a hand-painted copy made for your order, so no two are quite the same.

Which size of The Night Café for which wall?

Short answer: 70 x 55 or 80 x 60 cm above a desk, a chest of drawers or a bed in a smaller room, 115 x 93 or 130 x 102 cm above a sofa or a sideboard, and 145 x 113 or 150 x 120 cm for a large empty wall.

There are 17 sizes, from 50 x 40 to 150 x 120 cm (width x height). The original is 92.1 cm wide and 72.4 cm high, so our 92 x 72 cm size is practically the same as the painting at Yale. A painting for the living room should cover about two thirds of the width of the sofa below it: above a sofa of about 200 cm, that is 130 x 102 or 140 x 105 cm. The strong red and green look best on a light, plain wall.

Hang it with the centre of the canvas about 150 cm above the floor, and 20 to 30 cm above a sofa or a sideboard.

What if I need a custom size or a frame?

If none of the 17 sizes fits your wall, we paint it to measure. Keep the proportions close to the original, otherwise the room and the billiard table get squeezed or stretched. Send us the width and height you want and we will quote a price and a lead time. Every painting we make is stretched over a wooden stretcher and ready to hang.

For the moulding, use our 3D application: it shows each of our frame profiles on this subject – the application is for choosing the frame only. If you would like to see how the painting will look on your own wall, that is our separate room placement service. A gold frame picks up the yellow of the lamps and the floor, and a dark wood frame calms the red.

How does delivery work, and what is the guarantee?

Every painting is made to order in our studio in Slovenia, so allow 15 to 45 days depending on the size you choose. We ship it stretched and protected, framed if you chose a frame, across the EU with no customs. Before dispatch you receive a photograph of the finished work to approve; if anything is not right, we correct it while the canvas is still in our workshop. Our returns policy applies to every order.

More famous Van Gogh paintings are in the Vincent van Gogh gallery, and there is more about the painter in our article on Vincent van Gogh. For a gift, a wall art voucher lets the recipient choose size and subject.

Frequently asked questions

Where is the original The Night Café today?

In the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. The museum lists it as Le café de nuit, 1888, oil on canvas, object number 1961.18.34. It came to Yale in 1961 as a bequest of Stephen Carlton Clark.

When and where did Van Gogh paint The Night Café?

In Arles, in the south of France, in the first days of September 1888. He painted it inside the Café de la Gare at 30 Place Lamartine, an all-night café run by Joseph-Michel and Marie Ginoux. He sat up three nights in a row to work on it by gaslight and slept during the day.

Why did Van Gogh paint The Night Café?

To show a mood through colour. He wrote to Theo that he had tried to express the terrible passions of humanity by means of red and green, and that the café was a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad or commit a crime. The café, open all night, gave him the subject.

What is the meaning of The Night Café?

It is a painting about unease. The clashing red and green, the glaring yellow lamps and the floor that tilts towards you make a warm room feel restless, which is how the Yale University Art Gallery reads it. Van Gogh chose the colours to express a feeling rather than to copy what he saw.

Who is the man in white in The Night Café?

He is usually said to be the owner, Joseph-Michel Ginoux, who ran the Café de la Gare with his wife Marie. He stands beside the billiard table and looks straight at you, the only upright figure in the room. Wikipedia counts five guests at the tables along the walls, slumped or asleep, which makes six figures in all.

Is The Night Café the same painting as Café Terrace at Night?

No. The Night Café shows the inside of the Café de la Gare on the Place Lamartine, with red walls and a green ceiling under gas lamps. Café Terrace at Night shows a different, larger café on the Place du Forum from the outside, under a starry sky. Both come from Arles in 1888.

Who owned The Night Café before Yale?

Van Gogh gave it to his brother Theo in 1889. In 1907 it went to the Paris gallery Bernheim-Jeune and, around 1908, to the Moscow collector Ivan Morozov, whose collection was nationalised in 1918. In 1933 it was sold to Stephen Carlton Clark of New York. More on its story and the later court case is on Wikipedia.

How big is the original The Night Café?

The original is 72.4 cm high and 92.1 cm wide, a landscape format that sits well above a sideboard or a sofa. Our 92 x 72 cm size matches it almost exactly, and there are 16 other sizes, from 50 x 40 to 150 x 120 cm, as well as custom sizes made for one particular wall.

Is your version of The Night Café a print?

No. Every canvas painting we make is painted by hand by a painter, in oil on canvas, with the thick paint Van Gogh used. The red walls, the green ceiling and the rings of light around the lamps are built up stroke by stroke.

Does your version of The Night Café have the raised brushstrokes of the original?

Yes. We paint it in impasto: the paint goes on thickly, so the brushstrokes stand up from the canvas as on Van Gogh’s original. You see the relief best in the circling strokes around the four lamps and in the long yellow lines of the floorboards.

• Subject: the inside of the all-night Café de la Gare in Arles, with red walls, a green ceiling, gas lamps and a billiard table.
• Original: September 1888, Arles, 72.4 x 92.1 cm, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven.
• Ours: a Van Gogh reproduction painted by hand in oil on canvas, in 17 sizes from 50 x 40 to 150 x 120 cm or made to measure.