Van Gogh greatly admired Charles-François Daubigny, a French landscape artist associated with the Barbizon school who painted river and coastal scenes en plein air.

In Auvers he was under the care of Paul Gachet, a homeopathic physician, who advised Van Gogh to not worry about his illness and focus on his painting.

"[3] Van Gogh wrote in a letter dated 23 July 1890 to his brother Theo, "Perhaps you'll take a look at this sketch of Daubigny's garden – it is one of my most carefully thought-out canvases.

[6] The initial study, on extended loan to the Kunstmuseum Basel from the Rudolf Staechelin Family Foundation, has a black cat in the foreground towards the left.

After the war legitimate Van Gogh paintings were mixed up with forgeries in the inventory of German art dealer Otto Wacker.

[9] In 1929 Ludwig Justi, the director of the Berlin National Gallery, was particularly interested in the version of Daubigny's Garden (F776) owned by Paris art dealer Paul Rosenberg.

French painter and collector Emile Schuffenecker, who was known to have made copies of Van Gogh's work, had at one point possessed this Daubigny's Garden.

Knowing that there were rumors surrounding the authenticity of the painting, Justi discreetly inquired about its provenance, and received "a detailed and reassuring answer."