For Vincent, she was the epitomy of the Arlesian woman: “ I am working on an Arlesian woman portrait, where I seek a different expression from that of the Parisian women.”
He first painted her portrait with Gauguin (with whom she may have had an affair), then made four others in Saint Rémy.
In his last paintings, Vincent used Gauguin’s drawing and achieved an “Arlesian synthesis”: “…Take it as a work achieved by both you and me, as a sum up of our months working together. As for me, to do it, I paid one more month of sickness…”

t was while taking back his last painting to Arles, probably to offer it to Mme Ginoux, that Vincent had a serious fit. We don’t know where he spent the night, and the painting has vanished.