Baby Marcelle Roulin, The

The postman Joseph Roulin was one of the few real friends Van Gogh made in Arles, and across the winter of 1888 he painted the whole household — Roulin, his wife, and their three children. This is the baby, Marcelle, born that July and only about four months old. Van Gogh gives her enormous against a plain green ground, all round cheeks and small restless hands. He painted her three times over, nearly identical, so the mother and his own family in the north could each be given one. Roulin had first sat for him back in the summer, on the very day this daughter was born.