Vincent van Gogh, 'Sunflowers', 1888
About the work
Overview
This is one of five versions of Sunflowers on display in museums and galleries across the world. Van Gogh made the paintings to decorate his house in Arles in readiness for a visit from his friend and fellow artist, Paul Gauguin.
‘The sunflower is mine’, Van Gogh once declared, and it is clear that the flower had various meanings for him. The different stages in the sunflower’s life cycle shown here, from young bud through to maturity and eventual decay, follow in the vanitas tradition of Dutch seventeenth-century flower paintings, which emphasise the transient nature of human actions. The sunflowers were perhaps also intended to be a symbol of friendship and a celebration of the beauty and vitality of nature.
The sunflower pictures were among the first paintings Van Gogh produced in Arles that show his signature expressive style. No other artist has been so closely associated with a specific flower, and these pictures are among Van Gogh’s most iconic and best-loved works.
Key facts
Details
- Full title
- Sunflowers
- Artist
- Vincent van Gogh
- Artist dates
- 1853 - 1890
- Date made
- 1888
- Medium and support
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 92.1 × 73 cm
- Inscription summary
- Signed
- Acquisition credit
- Bought, Courtauld Fund, 1924
- Inventory number
- NG3863
- Location
- Room 43
- Collection
- Main Collection
- Frame
- 17th-century Italian Frame
Provenance
Additional information
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Martin Davies, with additions and some revisions by Cecil Gould, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: French School: Early 19th Century, Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, etc.’, London 1970; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
Exhibition history
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2013Van Gogh at WorkVan Gogh Museum1 May 2013 - 31 August 2013
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2019Van Gogh and BritainTate Britain27 March 2019 - 11 August 2019
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2020Masterpieces from the National Gallery, LondonThe National Museum of Western Art18 June 2020 - 18 October 2020The National Museum of Art3 November 2020 - 31 January 2021
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2021Botticelli to Van Gogh: Masterpieces from the National Gallery, LondonNational Gallery of Australia5 March 2021 - 14 June 2021
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2024Van Gogh: Poets and LoversThe National Gallery (London)14 September 2024 - 19 January 2025
Bibliography
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1928J.B. de la Faille, L'oeuvre de Vincent van Gogh, Paris 1928
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1937W. Scherjon and J. de Gruyter, Vincent Van Gogh's Great Period, Arles, St Rémy and Auvers-sur-Oise, Amsterdam 1937
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1954D. Cooper, The Courtauld Collection: A Catalogue and Introduction, London 1954
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1958The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh, London 1958
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1959R. Alley, Tate Gallery Catalogues: The Foreign Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1959
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1963H.R. Graetz, The Symbolic Language of Vincent Van Gogh, New York 1963
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1966M. Roskill, 'Van Gogh's "Blue Cart" and His Creative Process', Oud Holland, 1966
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1968K. Hoffmann, 'Zu van Goghs Sonnenblumenbildern', Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 1968, pp. 27-58
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1970Davies, Martin, and Cecil Gould, National Gallery Catalogues: French School: Early 19th Century, Impressionists, Post-Impressionists etc., London 1970
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1970M. Roskill, Van Gogh, Gauguin and French Painting of the 1880s: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Key Works, Ann Arbor 1970
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1981B. Welsh-Ocharov, Vincent van Gogh and the Birth of Cloisonism (exh. cat. Art Gallery of Ontario, 24 January - 22 March 1981; Van Gogh Museum, 9 April - 14 June 1981), Toronto 1981
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1987J. van der Wolk, The Seven Sketchbooks of Vincent Van Gogh, London 1987
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1988A. Reeve, P. Ackroyd and A. Stephenson-Wrigh, 'The Multi-Purpose Low Pressure Conservation Table', National Gallery Technical Bulletin, XII, 1988, pp. 10-5
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1988R. Dorn, 'Vincent van Gogh's Concept of "Décoration"', in Vincent van Gogh: International Symposium, 1985, Tokyo 1988, pp. 375-84
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1989E. Michaud, 'Van Gogh, or the Insufficiency of Sacrifice', October, XLIX, 1989, pp. 25-39
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1990R. Dorn, Décoration: Vincent Van Goghs Werkreihe für das Gelbe Haus in Arles, Zürich 1990
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1990P.C. Sutton, Northern European Paintings in the Philadelphia Museum of Art: From the Sixteenth Through the Nineteenth Century, The Hague 1990
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1990E. van Uitert, L. van Tilborgh and S. van Heugten, Vincent van Gogh: Paintings (exh. cat. Vincent van Gogh and the Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, 30 March - 29 July 1990), Milan 1990
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1993I.F. Walther and R. Metzger, Vincent Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings, Cologne 1993
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1995R. White and J. Pilc, 'Analyses of Paint Media', National Gallery Technical Bulletin, XVI, 1995, pp. 85-95
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1996J. van Lindert and L. van Tilborgh, 'Van Gogh's Still Lifes', in Vincent Van Gogh and his Time. Still Lifes from the Van Gogh Museum and the H. W. Mesdag Museum, Tokyo 1996
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1998B. Landais, Pour le rejet de la thèse d'un échange avec Gauguin d'une toile de Tournesols arlésiens de Vincent & pour l'attribution à Claude Emile Schuffenecker de la copie, aujourd'hui au Japon 14 Tournesols de la National Gallery, n.p. 1998
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1998J. Hooper, 'Christie's Faces Lawsuit over £24m Sunflowers', The Guardian, 1998
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1998G. Norman, 'Are These Flowers Real?', Daily Telegraph, 1998
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1998G. Norman, 'Van Gogh's Sunflowers Still Shed Ds of Doubt', Daily Telegraph, 1998
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1998B. Welsh-Ovcharov, 'The Ownership of Vincent van Gogh's "Sunflowers"', The Burlington Magazine, CXL, 1998, pp. 184-8
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1999R. Dorn, 'Van Gogh's Sunflowers Series: The Fifth Toile de 30', Van Gogh Museum Journal, 1999, pp. 43-61
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2001
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
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2001D. Druick et al., Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South (exh. cat. Art Institute of Chicago, 22 September 2001- 13 January 2002; Van Gogh Museum, 2 February - 2 June 2002), Chicago 2001
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2003A. Graham-Dixon, In the Picture: The Year through Art, London 2003
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2006C. Riopelle, Manet to Picasso, London 2006
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2022S. Avery-Quash and A. Lepine (eds), Fruits of the Spirit: Art from the Heart, London 2022
About this record
If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.