Two rare photographic albums taken by art critic Gustave Coquiot in 1922 have been acquired by the newly established Van Gogh Academy in Auvers-sur-Oise, France, and are now on display. The images capture many of the sites in Arles that Vincent van Gogh painted in the late 1880s, including the Yellow House, the Langlois Bridge, and the Rhône riverbank. Several of these locations were later destroyed during World War II or by modernization, making Coquiot's photographs valuable historical records of Van Gogh's original subjects.
The acquisition matters because it provides art historians and the public with a direct visual comparison between Van Gogh's highly personal interpretations and the actual landscapes and buildings as they appeared just decades after the artist worked there. The photographs offer crucial evidence about lost sites like the Yellow House, which was bombed in 1944 and demolished, and the Langlois Bridge, which was rebuilt and later destroyed. This material deepens understanding of Van Gogh's creative process and the physical context of his most famous works.