# Madame Roulin Rocking the Cradle (La berceuse)

- By: Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890)
- Date: 1889
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: 92.7 × 73.8 cm (36 1/2 × 29 1/2 in.); Framed: 111.9 × 91.8 × 8.3 cm (44 1/16 × 36 1/8 × 3 1/2 in.)
- Culture: Netherlands
- Credit line: Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/27949)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/6f3ca8b9-fef6-edfc-a71c-3e7b471d5f6c/full/!1920,1080/0/default.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Vincent van Gogh saw in Augustine Roulin—along with her husband, Joseph, and their children—a model of love and family life. In this portrait, Roulin rocks a cradle by pulling on a rope. The title La Berceuse (the lullaby) suggests a consoling figure, and the artist described his palette as a soothing “lullaby in colors.”

Van Gogh painted five versions of this image. He completed this one in January 1889, soon after returning from his stay in the hospital following Paul Gauguin’s fraught departure. Madame Roulin sits in Gauguin’s chair, an attempt by Van Gogh to fill the space left by the older artist. In May 1889, Van Gogh gave this canvas to Gauguin as a gesture of reconciliation and friendship, instructing that it be hung between two paintings of sunflowers.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0