Retrato de una dama con cinta roja en el pelo

Van Gogh painted this in Antwerp in December 1885, a few weeks after arriving in the port city and enrolling at its academy. He was still in his dark phase, working in browns and blacks, and the sitter was a woman who performed in one of the café chantants, the singing cafés where he spent his evenings. The one bright note is the red ribbon in her hair, almost the only warm colour he allowed himself here. Within a few months he would move to Paris, meet the Impressionists, and watch his whole palette open up. He later gave the canvas to the young painter Émile Bernard, a friend from those Paris years, and it stayed in private hands, changing owners at auction as recently as 2019.