La Berceuse

Van Gogh painted this in Arles in the first weeks of 1889, in the raw aftermath of the December night he cut his own ear. Steadying himself with work, he made five versions of the same sitter: Augustine Roulin, wife of his friend the local postman. He called the picture La Berceuse, the woman who rocks the cradle. Look at her hands. She holds a cord that runs off the edge of the canvas to a cradle we never see. He meant it as a kind of comfort and imagined it hung between two of his sunflower paintings, like a lullaby for sailors far from home. This is one of the versions he worked through that winter, dated the 22nd of January 1889.