L'Homme à la pipe: Portrait of Dr. Gachet (de la Faille 1664; van Heugten and Pabst 101)

Dr. Paul Gachet, the homeopathic doctor and collector, nursed Van Gogh through the final weeks of his life. He is immortalized by the artist in this expressive print, Van Gogh's only etching, and in two painted portraits. After his initial experiments with lithography, Van Gogh was introduced to etching by Dr. Gachet, who was himself an etcher of some skill. According to van Heugten and Pabst 33 impressions of L'Homme à la pipe were pulled as a collaborative effort by the artist and his subject. The inscription by Gachet's son, Paul Gachet, Jr. on the reverse of the present example, reveals this unrecorded example to be one of this group of impressions. The inscription is identical to those found on three other early impressions documented by van Heugten and Pabst, one in the Bridgestone Museum of Art, Tokyo, another in a Swiss private collection, and a third, in an American private collection.