Starry Night Over the Rhône

Painted in September 1888 on the embankment of the Rhône opposite his Yellow House in Arles, Vincent van Gogh's 'Starry Night Over the Rhône' captures the play of gas streetlights and the constellation Ursa Major reflected in long parallel strokes on the river at night. A courting couple strolls at the lower right, knitting the human scale into the quiet blue of the evening. Painted more than six months before the more celebrated 'Starry Night' of Saint-Rémy (MoMA), it is Van Gogh's first sustained study of the night sky in oil.

Exhibition Venue

Musée d'Orsay

Paris, France