final work. During his last weeks at Saint-Rémy, his thoughts returned to "memories of the North", and several of the approximately 70 oils, painted during as many days in Auvers-sur-Oise, are reminiscent of northern scenes. In June 1890, he painted several portraits of his doctor, including Portrait of Dr Gachet, and his only etching. In each the emphasis is on Gachet's melancholic disposition. There are other paintings which are probably unfinished, including Thatched Cottages by a Hill. In July, Van Gogh wrote that he had become absorbed "in the immense plain against the hills, boundless as the sea, delicate yellow". He had first become captivated by the fields in May, when the wheat was young and green. In July, he described to Theo "vast fields of wheat under turbulent skies". He wrote that they represented his "sadness and extreme loneliness" and that the "canvases will tell you what I cannot say in words, that is, how healthy and invigorating I find the countryside". Wheatfield with Crows, although not his last oil work, is from July 1890 and Hulsker discusses it as being associated with "melancholy and extreme loneliness". Hulsker identifies seven oil paintings from Auvers that follow the completion of Wheatfield with Crows. Research published in 2020 by senior researchers at the museum Louis van Tilborgh and Teio Meedendorp, reviewing findings of Wouter van der Veen, the scientific director of the Institut Van Gogh, concluded that it was "highly plausible" that the exact location where Van Gogh's final work Tree Roots was some from the Auberge Ravoux inn where he was staying, where a stand of trees with a tangle of gnarled roots grew on a hillside. These trees with gnarled roots are shown in a postcard from 1900 to 1910. Van der Veen believes Van Gogh may have been working on the painting just hours before his death. Death On 27 July 1890, aged 37, Van Gogh is believed to have shot himself in the chest with a 7 mm Lefaucheux pinfire revolver. There were no witnesses and he died 30 hours after the incident. The shooting may have taken place in the wheat field in which he had been painting, or in a local barn. The bullet was deflected by a rib and passed through his chest without doing apparent damage to internal organs – probably stopped by his spine. He was able to walk back to the