Van Gogh's Cousin Rejected Him

In August 1881, Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh declared his love and proposed marriage to his recently widowed cousin, Cornelia "Kee" Vos-Stricker, who was seven years older and had an eight-year-old son. She rejected him with the words, "No, nay, never." Late that November, Van Gogh traveled to Amsterdam, but Kee refused to meet him, and her parents wrote that his "persistence is disgusting." Her father insisted they would not marry, largely because Van Gogh could not support himself, and the distraught artist responded by holding his left hand in a lamp flame while asking to see her.

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