While living in the Yellow House with his then good friend, Paul Gauguin, van Gogh produced several works.

Many of these were either influenced in some way by Gauguin or have a Gauguin painting twin. For Memory of the Garden at Etten (Ladies of Arles), Gauguin encouraged his pal to paint from memory, hence the title. Gauguin’s painting Arlésiennes was either painted at the same time or as a response. 

If you’re familiar with van Gogh’s personal life, you likely know that things did not go so well when van Gogh and Gauguin moved in together. Sometimes friends just don’t make good roommates. Sometimes a rivalry ensues and an ear gets cut off. We've all been there. They had distinctive styles and different approaches that didn’t quite mesh. This painting stands out from van Gogh’s other works because he gave Gauguin’s method a try, initially planning to hang the painting in his bedroom before he ultimately decided he didn’t like it or Gauguin’s approach.

Van Gogh’s summer in Etten held a lot of memories beyond his impression of the gardens, specifically the woman who usually sat beside him while he painted landscapes. Her name was Kee, a widow and a cousin of van Gogh. She and her young son would join him while he worked and van Gogh fell hard for her. She didn’t feel the same, which is putting it mildly. He tried to kiss her and she definitively told him “Never, no, never.” But heartbroken Van Gogh was passionate, a tad obsessive, and really stubborn. 

He wrote her several love letters and his unrequited affection for her became both a family scandal and an embarrassment. Van Gogh begged his brother Theo for the funds to go visit her and, though he didn’t encourage his pursuit, he gave him the money, likely hoping it would help him find closure and move on. But Van Gogh never saw Kee again. He went to the home she was staying at several times and was told each time that she was not there. Her clear and continued avoidance was too blatant to ignore, and van Gogh did give up and move on.

Van Gogh wrote to his sister Willemina of Memory of the Garden at Etten (Ladies of Arles) saying, “Let’s suppose that these two women walking are you and our mother.” So, almost certainly the two figures depicted were meant to only portray his mother and sister. Though he discussed the bright colors of the women’s shawls as being the aspect most representative of his mother, rather than the physical appearance. But, his biographer Marc Edo Tralbaut argued that, at least subconsciously, one of the figures represents Kee.