''White House at Night'' is an oil on canvas painting created on 16 June 1890 in the small town of Auvers-sur-Oise by

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...

, six weeks before his death. It is displayed at the

Hermitage Museum The State Hermitage Museum ( rus, Государственный Эрмитаж, r=Gosudarstvennyj Ermitaž, p=ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)ɨj ɪrmʲɪˈtaʂ, links=no) is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is the largest ...

, St. Petersburg. According to the Hermitage Museum, the painting "expresses the great psychological tension under which Van Gogh found himself"; two of the windows, considered the "eyes" of a home, are rendered with "alarming" red splashes, while the star, a sign of fate, is seen as symbolic of van Gogh's anguish. It is thought that van Gogh painted ''White House at Night'' around 8:00 PM due to the position of the "star" in the painting. Astronomers Donald Olson and Russell Doescher from the

Texas State University-San Marcos Texas State University is a public research university in San Marcos, Texas. Since its establishment in 1899, the university has grown to the second largest university in the Greater Austin metropolitan area and the fifth largest university ...

calculated that the star in the painting must be Venus which was bright in the evening sky in June 1890. The house is the same one depicted in '' Blossoming Chestnut Tree''. The painting has a turbulent history. It was exhibited in Switzerland several times during the 1920s, but in the late 1920s disappeared into the private collection of German industrialist

Otto Krebs Josef Karl Paul Otto Krebs (25 March 1873–26 March 1941) was a German industrialist and major collector of late 19th and early 20th century French paintings, particularly those of Paul Cézanne, Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Van Gogh and Paul Gaugu ...

, Many of his acquisitions were of a style which was soon to be labelled "

degenerate art Degenerate art (german: Entartete Kunst was a term adopted in the 1920s by the Nazi Party in Germany to describe modern art. During the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, German modernist art, including many works of internationally renowned artists, ...

" by the Nazis, which contributed towards the already publicity-shy Krebs keeping his collection secret. Thought to have been lost after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, the painting languished in the Hermitage archives for fifty years before resurfacing in 1995 as part of an exhibition displaying artworks looted by the

Soviets Soviet people ( rus, сове́тский наро́д, r=sovyétsky naród), or citizens of the USSR ( rus, гра́ждане СССР, grázhdanye SSSR), was an umbrella demonym for the population of the Soviet Union. Nationality policy in ...

at the end of the war. Three other van Gogh's from Kreb's collection were also shown: '' Landscape with House and Ploughman'', '' Morning: Going out to Work (After Millet)'', and the '' Portrait of Madame Trabuc''.

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* 1890 paintings Paintings by Vincent van Gogh Paintings of Auvers-sur-Oise by Vincent van Gogh Paintings in the collection of the Hermitage Museum Paintings of Venus (planet) {{19C-painting-stub

See also

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