"[4] However, in a letter dated two days later to their sister Wilhelmina, he relayed, "I have found a true friend in Dr. Gachet, something like another brother, so much do we resemble each other physically and also mentally.

After a visit with Paul Gauguin to Montpellier to see Alfred Bruyas's collection in the Musée Fabre, Van Gogh wrote to Theo, asking if he could find a copy of the lithograph after the painting.

[6] The doctor's "sensitive face", which Van Gogh wrote to Paul Gauguin carried "the heartbroken expression of our time", is described by Robert Wallace as the portrait's focus.

"[5] Elaborating on this quote, Van Gogh scholar Jan Hulsker noted "... much later generations experience it not only as psychologically striking, but also as a very unconventional and 'modern' portrait.

The second set were styled after the portrait of the same figure by Gauguin, and Van Gogh described Gachet's enthusiasm upon viewing the version painted earlier that year, which the artist had carried with him to the home in Auvers.

[13] Van Gogh subsequently carried compositional elements from this portrait to that of Dr. Gachet, including the table-top with two books and pose of the figure with head leaning on one hand.

The Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda confiscated the work in 1937 as part of its campaign to rid Germany of so-called degenerate art.

Hermann Göring, through his agent Sepp Angerer, sold it to Franz Koenigs in Paris, together with The Quarry of Bibemus by Cézanne and Daubigny's Garden, also by van Gogh.

[17] Though he later said he would consider giving the painting to the Japanese government or a museum, no information has been made public about the exact location and ownership of the portrait since his death in 1996.

In a letter dated 3 June 1890 to Theo, Vincent mentions his work on the portrait, which includes "... a yellow book and a foxglove plant with purple flowers.

These copies were self-declared, and signed under the pseudonyms Paul and Louis Van Ryssel, yet the practice has thrown the entire Gachet collection into question, including the doctor's portrait.

[24] Additionally, some critics have noted the sheer number of works to emerge from Van Gogh's stay in Auvers, roughly eighty in seventy days, and questioned whether he painted them all himself.

[21] Partly in response to these accusations, the Musée d'Orsay, which holds the second version of the Gachet portrait as well as the other works originally owned by the doctor, held an exhibit in 1999 of his former collection.

[21] In addition to the paintings by Van Gogh and the other Post-Impressionist masters, the exhibition was accompanied by works of the elder and younger Gachet.

[25] Prior to the exhibition, the museum commissioned infrared, ultraviolet and chemical analysis of eight works each by Van Gogh, Cézanne, and the Gachets for comparison.

B. de la Faille, who compiled the first exhaustive catalog of Van Gogh works in 1928, noted in his manuscript, "We consider this painting a very weak replica of the preceding one, missing the piercing look" of the original.

The National Gallery of Canada finds that "The undulating flow of the line is typical of the expressive quality of Van Gogh's late style."