This painting depicts the right wing of 2 Place Lamartine, Arles, France — the house van Gogh rented in May 1888. The window on the first floor near the corner with both shutters open is the artist’s guest room, where Gauguin lived for nine weeks later in the same year. Behind the next window, with one shutter closed, is van Gogh’s bedroom. Van Gogh depicts the restaurant, where he used to have his meals, in the building painted pink close to the left edge of the painting. To the right side of the Yellow House, the Avenue Montmajour runs down to the two railway bridges. The first line, with a train just passing, served the local connection to Lunel, which is on the opposite bank of the river Rhône. Sadly, the building was severely damaged in a bombing raid by the Allies on June 25, 1944 and was later demolished.
The painting was executed in September 1888, at which time van Gogh sent a sketch of the composition to his brother Theo, describing, “a sketch of a 30 square canvas representing the house and its setting under a sulphur sun under a pure cobalt sky. The theme is a hard one! But that is exactly why I want to conquer it. Because it is fantastic, these yellow houses in the sun and also the incomparable freshness of the blue. All the ground is yellow too. I will soon send you a better drawing of it than this sketch out of my head.
“The house on the left is yellow with green shutters. It’s the one that is shaded by a tree. This is the restaurant where I go to dine every day. My friend the factor is at the end of the street on the left, between the two bridges of the railroad. The night café that I painted is not in the picture, it is on the left of the restaurant.”
The Yellow House has never left the artist’s estate. Since 1962, it has been held by the Vincent van Gogh Foundation, established by the artist’s nephew, and is permanently housed in the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.