Van Gogh's café terrace still stands. The café doesn't.
In September 1888, Vincent van Gogh set up his easel on the Place du Forum in Arles and painted a café terrace in the dark.
No black. Gaslight yellow against a blue sky full of stars.
"I enormously enjoy painting on the spot at night," he wrote to his sister.
He wasn't making it up. Astronomers later matched his stars to the sky over Arles on the night of 16 or 17 September 1888, says the Kröller-Müller Museum, which owns the canvas.
More than 130 years later, you can stand where he stood. The café on the square was redone to look exactly like the painting, and it became a tourist magnet.
Here's the twist. It has been shut since July 2023.
Its managers were accused of hiding more than €1 million in sales from 2012 to 2014. The owner was banned from running a business and later declared personally bankrupt, ARTnews reported.
The yellow walls are still there. The tables are gone.
Van Gogh got every star in the right place. The café couldn't get the receipts right.
Image: Vincent van Gogh, Terrace of a Café at Night (Place du Forum), 1888, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
