Maison du Dr. Gachet

Maison du Dr. Gachet Review

A major town landmark opened to the public for the first time in 2004: the house and garden of Van Gogh's closest friend in Auvers, Dr. Paul Gachet. Documents and souvenirs at the Maison du Dr. Gachet evoke Van Gogh's stay in Auvers and Gachet's passion for the avant-garde art of his era. The good doctor was himself the subject of one of the artist's most famous portraits (and the world's second-most expensive painting when it sold for $82 million in the late 1980s), the actual painting of which was reenacted in the 1956 biopic, Lust for Life, starring Kirk Douglas. Friend and patron to many of the artists who settled in and visited Auvers in the 1880s—among them Cézanne, who immortalized the doctor's house in a famous landscape—Gachet also taught them about engraving processes. The ivy covering Van Gogh's grave in the cemetery across town was provided by Gachet from the garden of this house.