Portrait of Agostina Segatori

The woman in this small head, 27 centimetres high, is thought to be Agostina Segatori. She had come to Paris from Naples and modelled for painters there, Corot among them, and by 1885 she was running her own place on the boulevard de Clichy, the Cafe du Tambourin, where the tables were shaped like tambourines. Van Gogh ate there through 1886 and 1887, hung pictures on its walls, and for a while had an arrangement with her that traded canvases for meals. He painted her twice in these months, once seated at one of those tables, in a picture that hangs in the same museum, and once as this quick study of the face. When the cafe passed to new owners in the summer of 1887 he had to argue to get his own paintings back out of the building.