Young Woman at a Table, 'Poudre de riz'

There is a good reason a Toulouse-Lautrec hangs in a museum built around Van Gogh. Vincent knew Lautrec from the Paris studio of Fernand Cormon, where both had studied, and just before leaving for the south of France in early 1888 he pressed his brother Theo to buy this canvas. Theo did, on 12 January 1888, for 150 francs, straight from the painter. That is how it ended up in the family collection and eventually here.

The title comes from the object on the table, a pot of poudre de riz, the perfumed rice powder women used to keep their skin fashionably pale.

From Arles that August, Vincent wrote to Theo about hanging his own portrait of a sunburnt local peasant beside it. He thought the two would help each other: his weather-beaten farmhand would look rougher, and the Lautrec, he said, would become even more distinguished by contrast with all that face powder and the stylish outfit.