Kunstmuseum Basel Celebrates Gertrud Dübi-Müller, the Swiss Pioneer Who Bought a Van Gogh at 19
In 1908, Gertrud Dübi-Müller became one of the first Swiss collectors of Vincent van Gogh by purchasing Portrait of Charles-Elzéard Trabuc (September 1889). The artwork was shipped on 27 April 1908, with payment completed by 30 April, arriving just two days prior to her 20th birthday. She acquired it for 40,000 Swiss francs from Galerie Miethke in Vienna, managed by her friend Carl Moll, after attending her inaugural Van Gogh exhibition in March 1908. Currently, the painting is on loan to Kunstmuseum Basel for the exhibition Van Gogh, Hodler, and a Cabriolet, running until 7 February 2027. Dübi-Müller, who lost her parents early, married lawyer Otto Dübi in 1921 and passed away in 1980, leaving 190 artworks to Kunstmuseum Solothurn.
Key facts
- Gertrud Dübi-Müller bought Van Gogh's Portrait of Charles-Elzéard Trabuc in 1908 at age 19, before turning 20
- The painting was dispatched on 27 April 1908 and paid for on 30 April, two days before her 20th birthday
- She paid 40,000 Swiss francs, then equivalent to $7,700, to Vienna's Galerie Miethke
- The exhibition Van Gogh, Hodler, and a Cabriolet: The Collector and Pioneer Gertrud Dübi-Müller runs at Kunstmuseum Basel until 7 February 2027
- Curator Géraldine Meyer said the purchase 'set her circle of friends on fire'
- Müller died in 1980, bequeathing 190 works to the Kunstmuseum Solothurn
- The companion Portrait of Jean Trabuc was looted by the Red Army in 1945 and is now at the State Hermitage Museum
- Müller was the first woman in Solothurn to buy a car, a Piccard-Pictet cabriolet, at age 23
Entities
Artists
- Gertrud Dübi-Müller
- Gertrud Müller
- Vincent van Gogh
- Cuno Amiet
- Ferdinand Hodler
- Giovanni Giacometti
- Alberto Giacometti
- Carl Moll
- Charles-Elzéard Trabuc
- Jean Trabuc
- Giovanin de Vöja
- Otto Dübi
- Monique Barbier-Mueller
- Paul Gauguin
- Marie Ginoux
- Sister Epiphane
- Jo Bonger
- Theo van Gogh
- Otto Krebs
- Paul Cezanne
- Henri Matisse
- Gustav Klimt
- Pablo Picasso
- Géraldine Meyer
Institutions
- Kunstmuseum Basel
- Kunstmuseum Solothurn
- Dübi-Müller Foundation
- Dübi-Müller-Stiftung
- Galerie Miethke
- Galerien Thannhauser
- Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur
- State Hermitage Museum
- Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts
- Musée d'Orsay
- Amiet Archive
- Fondation Cuno Amiet
- SIK-ISEA Zürich
Locations
- Basel
- Switzerland
- Solothurn
- Algeria
- Tunisia
- Matterhorn
- Munich
- Germany
- Vienna
- Austria
- Stampa
- Oschwand
- Saint-Rémy-de-Provence
- France
- Arles
- St. Petersburg
- Russia
- Chur
- Aarau
- Moscow
- Paris