The apartment where Vincent lived with his brother bordered the countryside and overlooked the city of Paris with the top of the butte of Montmartre covered with windmills. At the time the painting was made, the country landscape was beginning to disappear as a result of the city’s expansion. Soon the fields, pastures and windmills would largely disappear from the Montmartre area. In this view, Vincent paints the Moulin a Poivre, one of three mills still standing when he lives in Montmartre. With a generous use of greens, reds and blues, Vincent frames a couple walking towards the center of our visual focus with the diagonal picket fence creating the depth he sought to portray.

Painting, Oil on Canvas
Paris: February – March, 1887
Van Gogh Museum
Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Europe
F: 347, JH: 1241