Halbfigur eines Engels (nach Rembrandt)

Van Gogh painted this in the autumn of 1889, while he was living inside the asylum at Saint-Remy, in the south of France. He had committed himself there after the breakdown that cost him part of an ear, and through the long shut-in months he often had no model and could not always get outside. So his brother Theo mailed him prints, black-and-white reproductions of painters Vincent loved, and Vincent made his own colored versions of them. This angel comes from a Rembrandt. Working only from a print, he translated the old master's light and shade into his own restless color and brushwork, keeping just the half figure of the angel. The painting itself has since dropped from view, and its present whereabouts are not recorded.