Lullaby: Madame Augustine Roulin Rocking a Cradle (La Berceuse)

While in Arles, Van Gogh painted Augustine Roulin, the wife of postal worker Joseph Roulin (35.1982), in bold, exaggerated colors against a vividly patterned floral background. The rope in her hands leads to a cradle beyond the confines of the frame. At right, the painter inscribed the title “La Berceuse,” which means both “lullaby” and “she who rocks the cradle.” The Roulins had a baby at home, but Van Gogh conceived of the action in a broader sense as well, writing to his brother that he would like to see this painting “in the cabin of a boat” where fishermen in “their melancholy isolation, exposed to all the dangers, alone on the sad sea…would experience a feeling of being rocked, reminding them of their own lullabies.” This painting is one of five variations Van Gogh painted on the same subject.