Self-Portrait

Van Gogh arrived in Paris in the spring of 1886 without warning, sent his brother Theo a note from the Louvre telling him to come and meet him there, and moved into Theo's flat. He had been painting dark Dutch peasants until then, and within months the colour in his work had changed. Models cost money he did not have, so in Paris he began working from his own face, more than 20 times in two years. This is one of those canvases. The museum dates it to 1887, other scholars to the autumn of 1886, which is how quickly the series ran. Theo was managing a gallery on the boulevard Montmartre where Monet and Degas were sold, and most of what Vincent learned that year came through it.