Van Gogh succumbed to a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the age of thirty-seven, dying with his brother Theo at his bedside in the room above the Auberge Ravoux. He had produced roughly 900 paintings in barely a decade, almost entirely unrecognized in his lifetime, before becoming one of the most celebrated and valuable artists in history.
On the evening of July 27, 1890, van Gogh walked into a wheat field near Auvers-sur-Oise and shot himself in the chest with a revolver, reportedly borrowed to scare off crows. He managed to walk back to the Auberge Ravoux, the inn where he lodged, and climbed the stairs to his room without immediately alerting anyone to what he had done.
A doctor was summoned but could not remove the bullet, lodged too close to his spine. Theo van Gogh, his brother and lifelong champion, arrived by train and stayed at his bedside through the night of July 29, when Vincent died. His last words to Theo were reportedly "the sadness will last forever."
He had sold almost nothing during his lifetime and battled recurring mental health crises, including the episode in Arles when he severed part of his own ear. Within a generation, paintings like Starry Night and his sunflowers series, produced in a final burst of productivity at Saint-Rémy and Auvers, would be recognized as among the most significant works in Western art, their prices eventually reaching hundreds of millions of dollars, a fortune he never remotely glimpsed.
Key people: Vincent van Gogh, Theo van Gogh