All the unflattering things oldest person ever Jeanne Calment said about Vincent van Gogh

Having lived for well over a century, the oldest person ever, Jeanne Calment (France), got to experience more than most of us could dream of, including meeting the notoriously reclusive - and later incredibly famous - painter Vincent van Gogh.

But she didn't have many nice things to say about him.

Jeanne was born in 1875 and lived to be 122 years and 164 days old, passing in 1997. Having been born in the 19th century and being just three years shy of the millennium, Jeanne could have written her own history book.

"In her lifetime she witnessed the invention of the light bulb, the telephone, the automobile, the television, the computer, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and three American presidents," penned Lucinda Smyth for Prospect. "Both World Wars, both Boer wars, the Jazz Age, Hiroshima, birth control, the United States Black Civil Rights movement, and the rise of the internet."

Jeanne pictured in 1995. Image credit: Sipa/Shutterstock

Living through such history, it's to be expected that she'd have had some run-ins with a public figure or two. One such encounter, she claimed, was selling paint supplies to van Gogh when she was a child.

This occurrence was extremely rare as not much is known of the painter outside of his artwork. Smyth says: "A large portion of his contemporary fame stems from the fact that he was a complete unknown in his lifetime: no one knew of him, let alone personally knew him."

If his public appearances were so rare, where would he have crossed paths with Jeanne?