Portrait de Paul-Eugène Milliet, sous-lieutenant de zouaves

In the autumn of 1888, in Arles, Van Gogh had something rare for him: a friend. Paul-Eugene Milliet was a second lieutenant in the Zouaves, the French light infantry, home on leave from campaigns in North Africa. He and Van Gogh went out painting together, and Milliet took drawing lessons from him, though the two also drank and argued. Van Gogh set him in his dark uniform with the red cap against a flat green ground, stamped with the gold crescent and star of his regiment. He titled the portrait The Lover, half in envy: Milliet, he wrote to his brother, could have any woman in Arles he liked but could not paint, while Van Gogh could paint and could not. He later hung it in his bedroom, the same room he made famous in another canvas that year.