Episode Details

Vincent van Gogh spent his final day, 27 July 1890, in Auvers-sur-Oise, France, before returning to his room at the Auberge Ravoux with a gunshot wound to his abdomen. He claimed he had shot himself in the chest in a nearby wheat field, but the wound and the unusual trajectory of the bullet have led some historians to question the official story. Van Gogh survived for another day and a half, dying on 29 July 1890 in the arms of his brother Theo. The alternative theory is that he was accidentally shot by local teenagers, possibly with a gun they were playing with, and that Van Gogh chose to protect them by saying he had taken his own life.