Head of a Peasant Woman

In late January 1885 Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo from Nuenen, a village in the Dutch province of Brabant, that it was dismal outdoors. The fields were a marble of black clods and snow, with days of fog and mud in between, and the poplars and willows stood like wire against the sky. It all matched the cottage interiors, he wrote, very gloomy in these dark winter days. In the same letter he admitted he had less than a guilder left and still needed a model for several more hours that day. This small head belongs to that winter. The sitter is a peasant woman of Brabant in a dark cap, seen in strict profile and facing right. The canvas is under 40 centimetres tall, and it came to the Cincinnati Art Museum in 1962 as a gift from Mr. and Mrs. John J. Emery.