Van Gogh's Café Terrace at Night: a night painting made at night

October 27, 2026

Vincent van Gogh, Terrace of a Café at Night (Place du Forum), 1888: a gas-lit yellow café awning on a cobbled square under a starry blue sky (Kröller-Müller Museum, KM 108.565)

Short answer (updated 28 Oct 2026): Café Terrace at Night is a night painting Van Gogh actually made at night, on the spot, by gaslight. It's catalogued by the Kröller-Müller Museum as Terrace of a Café at Night (Place du Forum), painted in Arles around 16 September 1888: oil on canvas, 80.7 × 65.3 cm, inventory KM 108.565. It has no black in it, and it's the first starry sky in his work. Both the Kröller-Müller and the Van Gogh Museum report that later astronomical research matched the stars to the sky of 16 or 17 September 1888. It isn't The Starry Night (Saint-Rémy, 1889, MoMA), and it isn't Starry Night over the Rhône (Arles, 1888, Musée d'Orsay). (Kröller-Müller Museum; Van Gogh Worldwide)

The fact gap: night, painted at night

	What people assume	What the record says
Where it was painted	In the studio, from memory	In situ, in the dark. The museum says he painted the gas-lit terrace on the spot because colours look different by night. In a letter to his sister Wil (9 and c. 14 September 1888) he wrote: "I enormously enjoy painting on the spot at night. In the past they used to draw, and paint the picture from the drawing in the daytime. But I find that it suits me to paint the thing straightaway." (Kröller-Müller; Van Gogh, letter 678)
The colours	A dark night scene	No black or grey. To Wil he called it "a painting of night without black," with the lighted square "pale sulphur, lemon green" (letter 678). Warm yellow, green and orange under the awning push against the deep blue sky. Van Gogh: "an abundance of gaslight, which, after all, is yellow and orange, intensifies blue." (Kröller-Müller)
The stars	Decorative dots	The Kröller-Müller and the Van Gogh Museum both report that later astronomical research found the constellations placed as they appeared on 16 or 17 September 1888; neither names the study. The published astronomy on Van Gogh's skies includes Charles Whitney, "The Skies of Vincent van Gogh" (Art History 9, 1986, pp. 351–362, doi), and Donald Olson's chapter "Vincent van Gogh and Starry Skies Over France" (Celestial Sleuth, Springer, 2014, doi). We could not confirm which one the museums draw on, and astronomers have not agreed on the constellation. Astrophysicist Jean-Pierre Luminet's own sky reconstruction for the Place du Forum, looking south, points to the Y-shape of Aquarius. Treat the exact night as the museums' claim, not a settled measurement. (Kröller-Müller; Van Gogh Museum; Luminet 2019)
Which starry picture	It's "The Starry Night"	It's the first of three. Café Terrace (Sept 1888, Otterlo), then Starry Night over the Rhône (1888, Musée d'Orsay, RF 1975 19; Van Gogh sent Theo a sketch of it on or about 29 September 1888, letter 691), then The Starry Night (June 1889, MoMA). (Kröller-Müller; Musée d'Orsay; Van Gogh Letters; MoMA)
The title	Van Gogh named it "Café Terrace at Night"	The museum's title is Terrace of a Café at Night (Place du Forum); the canvas isn't signed. The English shorthand came later. (Kröller-Müller; Van Gogh Worldwide)
Was anyone watching?	He worked unnoticed	The local paper noticed. L'Homme de Bronze (30 September 1888) reported that "Mr Vincent, an Impressionist painter, works, we are told, in the evening, by the light of the gaslamps, in one of our squares." (Van Gogh Letters edition, letter 678, note 13)

Three details worth looking at

The floor turns orange. Under the awning the paving glows orange; step out of the lamplight and the cobbles go blue and violet. That's the gaslight-versus-blue contrast the museum describes, laid on the ground. (Kröller-Müller; our reading)
The houses are blue, not black. The dark buildings down the street are deep blue and green, which pushes the yellow terrace forward. (Kröller-Müller; our reading)
Stars as blossoms. The stars are small rosettes of light, not white points, set in a narrow slice of sky between the rooftops. (Our reading)

Context

Van Gogh arrived in Arles in February 1888; about six months later he painted this terrace on the Place du Forum by the light of a gas lamp. The museum calls it one of the highlights of his career. (Kröller-Müller)
The café is the Grand Café du Forum on the Place du Forum, Arles. (Van Gogh Letters edition, letter 678, note 12)
Van Gogh described it to Theo on Sunday 16 September 1888: "The second shows the outside of a café, lit on the terrace outside by a large gas-lamp in the blue night, with a patch of starry blue sky." He added: "The question of painting night scenes or effects, on the spot and actually at night, interests me enormously." The letter edition's note identifies the picture as Café terrace at night (F 467 / JH 1580). (letter 681)
Dating: the letter to Wil, finished about 14 September, already says the café picture had occupied him "these past few days," and the letter to Theo of 16 September calls it the second painting of that week. The museum dates the canvas c. 16 September. Treat the date as mid-September 1888. (letter 678; letter 681; Kröller-Müller)
A large drawing of the same composition, Café Terrace on the Place du Forum (September 1888; chalk, ink and graphite on laid paper, sheet 62.87 × 47.15 cm, 1985.R.79, The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection), belongs to the Dallas Museum of Art; it is listed as not on view. It is catalogued F1519 / JH 1579. (Dallas Museum of Art; De la Faille 1970; Hulsker 1980)
Provenance: the critic Albert Aurier, Paris; S. Williame-Aurier, Châteauroux (1892); bought for Helene Kröller-Müller by H.P. Bremmer from J. Williame in June 1914. (Van Gogh Worldwide)
Catalogue numbers F467 / JH 1580. De la Faille (1970) lists it as The café terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles, at night. (Van Gogh Worldwide)
It's listed as on display at the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, the Netherlands. (Kröller-Müller, checked 27 Oct 2026)

The Dallas drawing, for comparison

The Dallas Museum of Art's drawing shows the same terrace and the same view of the street. Without colour, the scaffolding of the picture shows: the awning, the lamp on its bracket, the cobbles and the narrowing street. In the drawing the sky is hatched with lines, and no stars are marked; the stars belong to the painting. (Dallas Museum of Art, 1985.R.79)

Vincent van Gogh, Café Terrace on the Place du Forum, September 1888, drawing, Dallas Museum of Art, 1985.R.79 (F1519 / JH 1579). Public domain (Van Gogh died 1890); image via Wikimedia Commons (PD-Art). Not supplied or endorsed by the museum; not the picture we print.

Which print

Our print reproduces the Kröller-Müller canvas (KM 108.565), not the Rhône picture, The Starry Night, or the drawing of the same terrace in Dallas. We print from a faithful public-domain photograph on Wikimedia Commons; Van Gogh died in 1890. The museum doesn't supply or endorse the file. The print is 4:5, within about one percent of the canvas's shape. → Van Gogh, Café Terrace at Night (1888) fine art print

Also from the dossier shelf:

The Starry Night: the opposite case, a night sky painted by day.
Sunflowers, 1887: Van Gogh in Paris, a year before Arles.

FAQ

Where is Café Terrace at Night? The Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlands, inventory KM 108.565.

When was it painted? Around 16 September 1888, in Arles.

How big is it? 80.7 × 65.3 cm (31¾ × 25¾ in.), taller than it is wide.

Did Van Gogh really paint it at night? Yes. The museum says he painted it in situ, in the dark, by gaslight.

What did Van Gogh say about it? Writing to his sister Wil, he called it "a painting of night without black" and said he enjoyed "painting on the spot at night" (letter 678).

Is it the same as The Starry Night? No. The Starry Night was painted in Saint-Rémy in June 1889 and is at MoMA. Café Terrace came nine months earlier.

Is there a drawing of it? Yes. The Dallas Museum of Art owns a drawing of the same terrace, September 1888, inventory 1985.R.79 (F1519 / JH 1579).

Is the image public domain? Yes. The painting is public domain and we print from a faithful public-domain photograph. No museum endorses this shop.