Monastery of Saint-Paul de Mausole | |
Native Name: | Monastère Saint-Paul-de-Mausole |
Native Name Lang: | French |
Full: | Monastery of Saint-Paul de Mausole |
Established: | 11th century |
Disestablished: | French Revolution |
Diocese: | Avignon |
Functional Status: | secularized |
Heritage Designation: | National Historical Monument |
Designated Date: | 1883 |
Style: | Romanesque |
Map Type: | France |
Coord: | 43.7767°N 4.8352°W |
The Monastery of Saint Paul de Mausole (French: monastère Saint-Paul-de-Mausole) is a former Roman Catholic 11th—century Benedictine monastery in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Provence, France. It was later administered by the Order of Saint Francis in 1605.
Several rooms of the building have been converted into a museum to honor the famed Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh, who stayed there in 1889–1890 at a time when the monastery had been converted to a lunatic asylum. At this site, van Gogh created his magnum opus, The Starry Night.
The monastery was built in the 11th century. Franciscan monks established a psychiatric asylum there in 1605.
See main article: Saint-Paul Asylum, Saint-Rémy (Van Gogh series). In the aftermath of the 23 December 1888 breakdown that resulted in the self-mutilation of his left ear, Vincent van Gogh voluntarily admitted himself to the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole lunatic asylum on 8 May 1889. Housed in a former monastery, Saint-Paul-de-Mausole catered to the wealthy and was less than half full when Van Gogh arrived, allowing him to occupy not only a second-story bedroom but also a ground-floor room for use as a painting studio.