Philadelphia Museum of Art
Who owned Rain (Van Gogh) from 1986 to 1987?
Rain ( Van Gogh ) Rain ( ; F650 , H565 , JH1839 ) is an oil-on-canvas painting by Vincent van Gogh , created in 1889 , while he was a voluntary patient at an asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence . He repeatedly painted the view through the window of his room , depicting the colours and shades of the fields and hills around Saint-Rémy as they appeared at various times of day and in varying weather conditions . Rain measures and is held by the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the United States . Creation . Van Gogh was a voluntary patient from May 1889 to May 1890 in the hospital at the Asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole , a former monastery at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence . One subject of particular interest of Van Gogh during his residence at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole hospital was a field behind the hospital , enclosed by walls , which he depicted in a series of at least 14 paintings and just as many sketches . He captured the field at different times of the day and in changing seasons . Having painted The Reaper in June 1889 , which depicts a peasant cutting wheat with a sickle at the end of the summer , and then Enclosed Field with Peasant , around 12 October 1889 , with a peasant carrying a bundle of straw in a bare ploughed field , he repainted the field during a rain shower a few weeks later . The later scene reflected the subdued greens , grape blues , and soft violets of autumn . Rain was painted on an untreated cotton canvas in November 1889 , or during heavy rainfall on 31 October 1889 . Van Gogh represented the rain as slanted lines at a different angle to the lines in the wheat field in the background . In creating this effect , he drew inspiration from Japanese prints , like those of Hiroshige with which he was familiar . The painting is mentioned in two letters to his brother Theo van Gogh . In a letter , Vincent said that a painting of a rain effect was in progress and , in a letter dated 3 January 1890 that he sent to Theo along with several paintings , he gave it the simple title La Pluie ( The Rain ) . This rain effect was again used in Landscape at Auvers in the Rain , Sower in the Rain ( F1550 ) , and Sower in the Rain ( F1551r ) . Provenance . On Van Goghs death in 1890 , the painting was inherited by his sister-in-law , Johanna van Gogh-Bonger . In 1903 , it was exhibited at the Munich Secession exhibition where it was purchased by the collector Hugo von Tschudi . His wife Angela von Tschudi inherited it on his death in 1911 . She lent it to the Neue Pinakothek in Munich and , in 1928 , the painting was sold to the art dealer Paul Rosenberg , who in turn sold it to Henry Plumer McIlhenny in 1949 . McIlhenny was associated with the Philadelphia Museum of Art , serving as its chairman from 1976 until his death in 1986 . He bequeathed his art collection to the museum , in memory of his mother , Frances Plumer McIlhenny . Sources . Letters Books