Head of a Peasant Woman with White Cap

Through the winter of 1884 and into 1885 Van Gogh was living with his parents in Nuenen, a village in Brabant, paying farm workers small sums to sit for him. He produced dozens of these heads in a few months, working towards the large picture of a family at supper that became The Potato Eaters.

He was after the white caps in particular. Women in Brabant wore them every day, and he wrote to his brother that the heads of the women here with their white caps were difficult, and eternally beautiful. The difficulty he meant was a hard white edge sitting against a face kept in shadow, which is the whole problem this study is set up to work on.

Later in 1885 the parish priest in Nuenen told his congregation not to model for him any more. Van Gogh painted a few more heads, then left Brabant for Antwerp in November and did not come back.