Van Gogh in

Kee and Christoffel Vos

Vincent van Gogh’s cousin Kee lived with her husband, Christoffel Vos, on the Prinsengracht across from the Westerkerk. Vincent greatly enjoyed visiting them. For instance, he stopped by on 5 August 1877 during a walk from eastern Amsterdam to Bickerseiland. He also visited them on the evening of 17 September and was impressed by their loving relationship:

“I spent Monday evening with Vos and Kee, they’re fond of each other and one certainly notices that where Love lives the Lord commands His blessing. It’s nice at their house, only a great pity that he couldn’t go on being a minister. When one sees them sitting there together in the evening by the kindly light of their lamp in the little living room and close by the bedroom of their little boy who wakes from time to time and asks his mother for this or that, it’s an idyll, but they also know dreadful days and sleepless nights, and fear and anxiety.” Read the complete letter

Vos was gravely ill and would die a few months after Vincent left Amsterdam for good. Years later, Vincent would secretly fall in love with Kee but his feelings for her would be left unanswered.