Self-Portrait

History

Van Gogh painted it at the asylum in Saint-Rémy in September 1889, and it may be his last self-portrait. He made about 32 in ten years, partly because he could not afford models. He sent it to his brother Theo, writing that his face had become much calmer, though his eyes had the same unsure look as before. The pale blue swirls of the background run on into his hair and his jacket. Dr Paul Gachet, who looked after him at Auvers in his last months, admired it, and Gachet's children gave it to the French state in 1949.