Peach Trees in Blossom is an 1889 painting by Vincent van Gogh. It is in the collection of the Courtauld Institute of Art.[1] The painting depicts a field with peach trees on the outskirts of Arles with the Alpilles mountains in the background.[1] The painting was intended as a homage to Japanese landscape prints which influenced Van Gogh.[1] It was created a few months after he had severed his ear and during a mentally unstable period in which he was still a patient at the men's hospital in Arles.[1]
Van Gogh wrote to his brother, Theo van Gogh in April 1889 about his work on the painting, and subsequently included a sketch of the work in a letter to Paul Signac sent on 10 April 1889.[1]
Peach Trees in Blossom was bought by the Belgian artist Anna Boch in 1891 for 350 francs (equivalent to £14 in 1891 and).[1] It was next acquired in 1927 by Samuel Courtauld for £9,000 .[1] The painting was hung by Courtauld in the Etruscan Room of his house in Portman Square in Marylebone.[1]
The painting was lent by Courtauld to an exhibition in the Village Hall of Silver End in Essex in 1935, as part of a project called 'Art for the People' to broaden public access to works of art.[1] In a 1935 letter to Lady Aberconway, Courtauld recalled that a recent drive through the countryside of Kent reminded him of the painting with its "bright green grass & blossoming fruit trees & the newly washed sky & water glistening everywhere".[1] The work presently hangs in the Great Room of the Courthald Institute of Art.[1]
On 30 June 2022 two protesters from Just Stop Oil glued themselves to the frame of the painting and caused £2,000 of damage to it.[2] Both were found guilty of causing criminal damage to the painting, one was found jailed for three weeks and the other received a suspended sentence.[2]