Autoportrait dédié à Paul Gauguin

In the autumn of 1888 Van Gogh was in Arles, dreaming of a shared studio in the south, and he asked the painters he admired to swap self-portraits as a pledge of that community. Gauguin and Emile Bernard, working together in Brittany, sent theirs. This was Van Gogh's reply, inscribed to his friend Paul Gauguin and posted to him in October. He told Gauguin he had painted himself as a bonze, a Japanese monk, a simple worshipper of the eternal Buddha, which is why the head is shaved close and the eyes are set slightly slanted against a pale jade ground. Weeks later Gauguin arrived in Arles. The two months they spent together ended with the razor and the severed ear, and Gauguin eventually sold this portrait for 300 francs.