Artworks

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

Artwork · No. 4 in La Berceuse · Vincent van Gogh · 1889 · oil painting · Museum of Fine Arts Boston

Van Gogh painted Augustine Roulin, the wife of the postal worker Joseph Roulin, holding the rope of a cradle beyond the frame, and inscribed the title lower right1. He wished to see it “in the cabin of a boat”, where fishermen would feel rocked and remember their own lullabies2. He sent it to Theo and had him give it to Émile Bernard. MFA Boston, La Berceuse, “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.’”. ↩ Ebd., “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.’”. ↩ Literatur MFA Boston, La Berceuse: Vincent van Gogh, Lullaby: Madame Augustine Roulin Rocking a Cradle (La Berceuse) (48.548), in: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Collections, https://collections.mfa.org/objects/33277 (zuletzt abgerufen am 30.10.2026).