Self-Portrait

By the autumn of 1887 Van Gogh had been in Paris about 18 months, sharing his brother Theo's flat on the rue Lepic. Models cost money he did not have, so he painted his own face instead, more than 20 times in those Paris months. That summer he had been out at Asnières on the Seine with Paul Signac, learning to put colour down in separate strokes, and the method runs right through this small canvas, the blue ground scored in short lines that turn around the head. In February 1888 he took the train south to Arles. The picture stayed in France and entered the national collection in 1947, a gift from the collector Jacques Laroche, and it hangs in the Musée d'Orsay now.