Description
White House at Night is the painting Vincent van Gogh made in Auvers-sur-Oise in June 1890, a few weeks before his death: a white two-storey house with green shutters and a red tiled roof stands behind dark green bushes, two of its upper windows glow red, a large star with a halo shines in the blue sky to the right, and a woman in a dark dress walks across the road in front. The original, oil on canvas, measures 59 x 72.5 cm and is in the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. We paint it by hand in oil on canvas, in 16 sizes from 43 x 35 to 150 x 120 cm or to your own measurements, and send you a photograph of the finished painting for approval before dispatch.
| Title: | White House at Night |
| Other titles: | La maison blanche · House under a night sky |
| Painter: | Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) |
| Year painted: | June 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise |
| Original size: | 59 cm x 72.5 cm |
| Original technique: | Oil on canvas |
| Painting style: | Post-Impressionism |
| Located at: | State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg |
| Our reproduction: | Hand-painted oil on canvas, 16 sizes or made to measure |
White House at Night – Vincent van Gogh
What does White House at Night show?
A long white house fills the upper left of the canvas. Its front is white with touches of grey, the side wall on the left is green, and the red-orange tiled roof carries two chimneys. The upper floor has a row of windows framed by green shutters, and two of them, towards the right, glow bright red. The ground floor is half hidden behind thick, dark green bushes; on the left an orange light glows, and a small yellow light glows among the bushes in the middle.
To the right, a pale garden wall with square pillars runs to a gate, where two figures in dark clothes stand with their backs to us. In front, a woman in a long dark dress crosses the pale road, a white bag in one hand. On the far left rises a tall, dark, narrow tree. The blue sky is laid in short curved strokes, and in its upper right corner shines a large yellowish orb ringed by a pale halo.
Is the light in the sky a star or Venus?
Van Gogh called it a star. In his letter to Theo of 17 June 1890, written in Auvers-sur-Oise, he listed two studies he was working on, and the second was, in his words, ‘a white house amid greenery with a star in the night sky and an orange light at the window and dark greenery and a sombre pink note’. The editors of the letters identify it as this painting.
Astronomers later read the sky more exactly. The English Wikipedia article on the painting reports that Donald Olson and Russell Doescher of Texas State University concluded that the star is the planet Venus, which was bright in the evening sky in June 1890, and that from its position the scene is thought to date from around eight in the evening. The German Wikipedia article is more cautious: it notes that the body could be a bright star, as Van Gogh wrote, or Venus.
What does White House at Night mean?
The house is calm, but the painting is not. Wikipedia quotes the Hermitage’s own reading: the painting ‘expresses the great psychological tension under which Van Gogh found himself’. In that reading the two red windows are the eyes of the house, painted as alarming red splashes, and the star is a sign of fate.
German Wikipedia cites the Hermitage curator Albert Kostenevich, who saw the rigid forms of the house and the dark figures as a gloomy foreboding, and who counted this canvas and Road with Cypress and Star among the most dramatic works of that time. It adds that the colours of the original have partly changed over time.
Where is the original today?
The original is in the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. After the painter’s death it passed to his brother Theo, and Theo’s widow Johanna van Gogh-Bonger gave it to Cornelis van Gogh, an uncle of Vincent. It later belonged to the Zurich collector Fritz Meyer-Fierz, who sold it to the Amsterdam firm Frederik Muller & Co.; in 1926 the Berlin gallery Paul Cassirer acquired it, and through the Berlin gallery J.S. Goldschmidt it reached the German industrialist Otto Krebs, who kept his collection at his estate in Holzdorf near Weimar.
Krebs died in 1941 and his heirs left the works there. After the Second World War the Red Army took them to the Soviet Union, where they ended up in the Hermitage depots in Leningrad. English Wikipedia writes that the painting, thought lost after the war, remained there for about fifty years and came to light again in 1995, when the Hermitage showed works from the Krebs collection in an exhibition.
White House at Night or another Van Gogh – which should you choose?
The closest in our range is Road with Cypress and Star, painted a few weeks earlier, in May 1890 in Saint-Rémy, which also has a star in its sky.
Three more works in our range are from Auvers-sur-Oise in 1890. The Church at Auvers-sur-Oise shows the village church, Wheat Field with Crows shows black birds over the wheat, and Landscape at Auvers in the Rain is a view of the countryside around the village. Choose the white house for a night scene with a lit house, a glowing sky and people on the road.
How is our hand-painted White House at Night made?
The painter first draws the house, the line of the roof, the windows, the wall with its gate and the figures, and checks the proportions against the original. Then comes the blue sky with its curved strokes and the orb with its halo, after it the white front, the green side wall, the shutters and the tiled roof, then the dark bushes and the tree on the left, and last the red windows, the small lights, the road and the woman walking. Our oil painting reproduction is painted by hand on canvas, with real impasto: the paint goes on thickly, so the brushstrokes stand up from the canvas as they do in the original and catch the light.
On this painting the relief shows most in the swirling strokes of the sky and the halo, in the dabs of the bushes and in the short strokes of the roof tiles. A print is completely flat; on our painting every brushstroke stands out in real paint.
Every painting is a hand-painted copy made for your order, so no two are quite the same.
Which size for which wall?
Short answer: 43 x 35 or 50 x 40 cm for a narrow wall in a hallway or beside a door, 70 x 59 or 85 x 70 cm above a chest of drawers or a desk, and 120 x 100 or 150 x 120 cm above a sofa or on a large wall.
There are 16 sizes: 43 x 35, 50 x 40, 55 x 45, 60 x 50, 70 x 56, 70 x 59, 70 x 60, 80 x 65, 85 x 68, 85 x 70, 85 x 72, 92 x 73, 100 x 80, 100 x 85, 120 x 100 and 150 x 120 cm (width x height). The original is 72.5 cm wide and 59 cm high, so our 70 x 59 cm size is very close to it, and 85 x 70 and 120 x 100 cm keep similar proportions at a larger scale. A painting for the living room should cover about two thirds of the width of the furniture below it.
Hang it with the centre of the canvas about 150 cm above the floor, so that the lit windows sit close to your own eye level. Above a sofa, a bed or a sideboard, leave 20 to 30 cm between the top of the furniture and the bottom of the canvas.
What if I need a custom size or a frame?
If none of the 16 sizes fits your wall, we paint it to measure in any width and height you need. Send us the width and height you want and we will quote you a price and a delivery time. Every painting we make is mounted on a wooden stretcher, ready to hang.
Our 3D app shows each of our frame profiles on this painting, so you can compare gold, silver, black, white and natural wood. The app is for choosing the frame only. To see the painting on your own wall, use our separate room placement service. A gold frame picks up the yellow orb and the orange-red lights in the house, while a dark wood or black one repeats the dark bushes and the woman’s dress.
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 on its stretcher, carefully packed (and framed, if you chose a frame), across the EU with no customs duty. Before dispatch we send you a photograph of the finished painting to approve, and we correct anything that is not right. Our returns policy applies to every order.
You will find more of Van Gogh’s famous works among all our Vincent van Gogh paintings, and more about the painter in our article on Vincent van Gogh. If it is a present and you are not sure of the size, a wall art voucher lets the recipient choose.
Frequently asked questions
Where is the original White House at Night today?
In the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. It is oil on canvas, 59 x 72.5 cm, painted in Auvers-sur-Oise in June 1890. The German industrialist Otto Krebs owned it before the Second World War; after the war it was taken to the Soviet Union and kept in the Hermitage depots, and it came to light again in 1995.
When and where did Van Gogh paint White House at Night?
In Auvers-sur-Oise, north of Paris, in June 1890, a few weeks before his death. English Wikipedia dates it to 16 June 1890, and Van Gogh described it as a study he was working on in his letter to Theo of 17 June 1890.
Is the star in White House at Night really Venus?
Probably, according to astronomers. Donald Olson and Russell Doescher concluded that it is the planet Venus, which shone brightly in the evening sky in June 1890, and placed the scene at about eight in the evening. Van Gogh himself wrote of a star in the night sky, and German Wikipedia notes that the question is not fully settled.
What did Van Gogh write about White House at Night?
One sentence in a letter to his brother Theo, dated 17 June 1890: a white house amid greenery with a star in the night sky, an orange light at the window, dark greenery and a sombre pink note. The orange light and the dark bushes are still clear; the pink, according to German Wikipedia, can no longer be traced.
Why was White House at Night unknown for so long?
Because it disappeared from view after the Second World War. It belonged to the collection of Otto Krebs near Weimar, which the Red Army took to the Soviet Union, and it stayed in the Hermitage depots in Leningrad. English Wikipedia writes that it was thought lost for about fifty years, until the Hermitage showed it in an exhibition in 1995.
How big is the original White House at Night?
59 cm high and 72.5 cm wide, a medium-sized landscape format. Our 70 x 59 cm size is very close to the original, and 85 x 70 cm is a little larger with similar proportions. If you want the house smaller or larger, there are 16 sizes from 43 x 35 to 150 x 120 cm, and custom sizes in any proportions.
Which size of White House at Night suits a living room?
Above a sofa, choose 120 x 100 or 150 x 120 cm, so that the canvas painting holds its own on a large wall and the red windows and the halo read clearly from across the room. On a narrower wall, beside a bookcase or above a sideboard, 85 x 70 or 100 x 80 cm works well. For a small room, 70 x 59 cm keeps the scene clear.
Does your White House at Night have the raised brushstrokes of the original?
Yes. We paint it in impasto, building up each brushstroke in thick oil, so the surface is raised like Van Gogh’s original. You see this best in the curved strokes of the blue sky, in the ring of the halo and in the dense dabs of the bushes, where the relief catches the light from the side.
- Subject: a white house with green shutters and two red-lit windows at night, a star with a halo in the blue sky, a woman walking on the road in front.
- Original: June 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise, oil on canvas, 59 x 72.5 cm, State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg.
- Ours: a Van Gogh reproduction painted by hand in oil on canvas, in 16 sizes from 43 x 35 to 150 x 120 cm or made to measure.
- Worth knowing: our 3D app shows every frame profile on this night scene, so you can choose the frame before you order.
