BUILDING A FORTEAN LIBRARY
NO 57. A CHINESE WHISPER AND AN URBAN LEGEND
he first time we heard the story of Vincent van Gogh (1853–90) and his famous ear, it was the clean version from our lovely primary school art teacher Mrs Unwin. He was a bit touched, but passionate about his girlfriend, and sliced off his ear as an eccentric token of his esteem. Over the years the tale became a bit raunchier: the ‘girlfriend’ was a lady of the night ( or ) named Rachel, and there was some argument over whether Vincent had cut off all or part of his ear. Almost all of this, it turns out, isn’t true, although there’s no doubt that in December 1888 Van Gogh handed at least some of his ear to Rachel, and that she fainted when she unwrapped the carefully washed and packaged organ. Bernadette Murphy spent who-knows-how-many years unearthing the actual facts about the episode – and burying a fair few other myths about the painter along the way – and in giving the results of her tireless research to us reveals, too, a fascinating picture of life in 19th-century Provence.
