Head of an Old Peasant Woman with White Cap

In the winter of 1884 Vincent van Gogh was living with his parents in Nuenen, a village in the Dutch province of Brabant, and he set himself a stubborn task. He wanted to paint the local peasants, so he went from cottage to cottage making head after head of farm labourers and their wives, dozens of them, in browns and dull greens the colour of the earth they worked. This old woman in her white cap is one of that run of studies. There is no charm added and no soft light flattering her face. Van Gogh was training his hand and eye on real working people, and all these heads were building toward one picture he had in mind, the group of poor diggers at supper that he would finish the next spring as The Potato Eaters.