Gabrielle Berlatier, a farmer’s daughter, was given Vincent Van Gogh’s ear when she was working as a maid at a brothel 
 
 The recipient of Vincent van Gogh’s ear has been named almost 130 years after the artist cut it off in Paris. 
 
 The Art Newspaper reported that after the incident on 23 December 1888, Van Gogh gave it to a young woman named Gabrielle Berlatier. She was referred to in a new book published last week – Van Gogh’s Ear: The True Story. The author, Bernadette Murphy, wrote that she promised Berlatier’s descendants to keep her name a secret. 
 
 However, the Art Newspaper was able to determine her identity by searching records at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. 
 
 “Identifying her throws fresh light on the bizarre incident in which Van Gogh cut off nearly all his ear,” wrote Martin Bailey, whose book about Van Gogh in Provence is published later this year. 
 
 Murphy’s book details how Gabrielle was treated at the Institut Pasteur in early 1888 for rabies after being bitten by a dog. Berlatier, a farmer’s daughter who lived near Arles in Provence, was taken to Paris and given a new anti-rabies vaccine that saved her life. 
 
 The whole truth about Van Gogh's ear, and why his 'mad genius' is a myth Read more 
 
 However, the treatment had put her family in debt and she was working as a maid in a brothel on Rue du Bout d’Arles. She was too young to be a registered prostitute, Murphy wrote. 
 
 “Until now it has been assumed that the recipient of the ear had been a casual acquaintance of the artist, either a prostitute or the madame at the brothel,” Bailey wrote in the Art Newspaper. 
 
 “Gabrielle, an innocent victim of a rabid dog and the temporarily deranged artist within the same year, later married and lived well into old age – keeping her traumatic encounter with Van Gogh a secret.” 
 
 
 
 Bailey also told the BBC: “Now we know the person, we can possibly find out more in future about the incident, who she was and Van Gogh’s links to her.” 
 
 Van Gogh cut off his ear after suffering a mental breakdown, but was found the following day by police and given medical treatment. He went on to take his life in 1890. 

 On this day in 1888, Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, suffering from severe depression, cuts off the lower part of his left ear with a razor while staying in Arles, France.He later documented the event in a painting titled Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear. Today, Van Gogh is regarded as an artistic genius and his masterpieces sell for record-breaking prices; however, during his lifetime, he was a poster boy for tortured starving artists and sold only one painting. 
 
 Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853, in the Netherlands. He had a difficult, nervous personality and worked unsuccessfully at an art gallery and then as a preacher among poor miners in Belgium. In 1880, he decided to become an artist. His work from this period–the most famous of which is The Potato Eaters (1885)–is dark and somber and reflective of the experiences he had among peasants and impoverished miners. 
 
 In 1886, Van Gogh moved to Paris where his younger brother Theo, with whom he was close, lived. Theo, an art dealer, supported his brother financially and introduced him to a number of artists, including Paul Gauguin, Camille Pisarro and Georges Seurat. Influenced by these and other painters, Van Gogh’s own artistic style lightened up and he began using more color. 
 
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 In 1888, Van Gogh rented a house in Arles in the south of France, where he hoped to found an artists’ colony and be less of a burden to his brother. In Arles, Van Gogh painted vivid scenes from the countryside as well as still-lifes, including his famous sunflower series. Gauguin came to stay with him in Arles and the two men worked together for almost two months. However, tensions developed and on December 23, in a fit of dementia, Van Gogh threatened his friend with a knife before turning it on himself and mutilating his ear lobe. Afterward, he allegedly wrapped up the ear and gave it to a prostitute at a nearby brothel. Following that incident, Van Gogh was hospitalized in Arles and then checked himself into a mental institution in Saint-Remy for a year. During his stay in Saint-Remy, he fluctuated between periods of madness and intense creativity, in which he produced some of his best and most well-known works, including Starry Night and Irises. 
 
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 In May 1890, Van Gogh moved to Auvers-sur-Oise, near Paris, where he continued to be plagued by despair and loneliness. On July 27, 1890, he shot himself and died two days later at age 37. 

 Image copyright AP 
 
 The young woman to whom Vincent Van Gogh gave his severed ear has been named as Gabrielle Berlatier. 
 
 The Art Newspaper tracked down the farmer's daughter's full name after a new book on the artist, published last week, referred to the woman. 
 
 The discovery of her name comes after it was suggested Van Gogh cut off his entire ear, rather than part of it. 
 
 Gabrielle was working as a maid in a brothel when she was given the strange gift, according to the new research. 
 
 Van Gogh is said to have handed over the ear to her with the words "keep this object carefully". 
 
 'Intriguing possibility' 
 
 Author Bernadette Murphy referred to the woman in Van Gogh's Ear: The True Story, which was published last week. 
 
 She said she had promised the woman's descendants she would keep her surname a secret, until they gave her permission to reveal it. 
 
 Following the book's publication, The Art Newspaper followed up details in the book and found Gabrielle's name in the records of the Institut Pasteur in Paris, where she had been treated for rabies after being bitten by a dog. 
 
 Analysis - Will Gompertz, arts editor 
 
 The legend of Van Gogh's self mutilation is turning into an art historians "ear-gate". First it was just the lobe, now it appears the entire auditory protrusion was severed by the deranged painter. 
 
 The uncovering of Gabrielle as the unlucky recipient of Van Gogh's dismembered ear adds more than just a new chapter to the now legendary tale. It means an entirely new story can be started. A story that seeks to uncover to whom the artist was speaking during his ultra heightened state, and how that can inform our knowledge of him as a pioneering painter. 
 
 I've always felt the story as previously told was too neat, too self-serving to the image the world wants to conjure of Van Gogh. I think the truth, if it ever emerges, will be a great deal darker and sadder and, paradoxically, all the more illuminating for it. 
 
 Martin Bailey, who wrote The Art Newspaper story, said discovering the name solved "one of the mysteries involving Van Gogh". 
 
 The Van Gogh expert said: "I was very intrigued to see the book and that there were enough clues in it to enable me to track down the name. 
 
 "It was a name I knew, so it wasn't an entire surprise and it was more of a confirmation. But now we know the person, we can possibly find out more in future about the incident, who she was and Van Gogh's links to her." 
 
 The Art Newspaper also suggested Gabrielle may have worked as a cleaner at the Cafe de la Gare, run by two friends of Van Gogh, and where the artist had stayed for several months. 
 
 This, the article said, "raises the intriguing possibility that she was someone whom Van Gogh saw regularly". 
 
 Gabrielle's first name had been revealed in 1936 in an article quoting the policeman called to the brothel in Arles where Van Gogh sliced off his ear in 1888, but newspaper reports at the time called her Rachel, which may have been a nickname. 
 
 The painter cut off his ear after suffering a mental breakdown. He was found alive by police the next day and taken to hospital. 
 
 Van Gogh took his own life in 1890. 
 
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– A recently uncovered pre-World War II sketch purports to show that Vincent van Gogh cut off most of his left ear, not just a small part of it. And while that fact is still being debated among historians, the name of the woman who supposedly was given that ear is now being revealed, the Guardian reports. The original legend has it that the troubled artist gave his severed body part to a prostitute named Rachel. But now, in what the BBC is calling "Eargate," author Bernadette Murphy's new book includes documentation about a young, unnamed daughter of a farmer who lived near Arles, France, and who was supposedly the recipient of the ear. Murphy writes that the girl was too young to be a prostitute and may have been a brothel maid. Van Gogh reportedly gave her his ear to make her feel better after she had been bitten by a dog and treated for rabies, instructing her to "keep this object carefully." Murphy had promised the girl's descendants she wouldn't reveal her name, and she kept that promise in Van Gogh's Ear: The True Story. But the Art Newspaper did a little sleuthing and says it can ID her as Gabrielle Berlatier, an 18-year-old whose medical records it found at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. Berlatier was said to have been bitten by the rabid dog on Jan. 8, 1888 (van Gogh cut his ear off in December of that year), and her life was saved by a vaccine. The paper also discovered clues that suggest Berlatier worked as a cleaner at a local cafe, which so happened to be owned by two of van Gogh's friends. He's said to have lived in a room there in 1888 from May to September, making it possible he knew the young Berlatier, and who allegedly kept the van Gogh secret away from others for the rest of her own life. (A van Gogh sketchbook was discovered in France earlier this year.)