Image: public domain, courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat

Vincent van Gogh, 1887

In Paris Van Gogh had little money for models, so he bought a good mirror and painted himself. He painted this portrait on the back of an earlier picture, The Potato Peeler.

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Did you know?

During his two years in Paris, from 1886 to 1888, he painted more than twenty self-portraits.
In Paris he lived with his brother Theo, an art dealer, in the hilly Montmartre district.
Look at the short, separate dashes of colour: he borrowed this idea from Neo-Impressionists such as Georges Seurat.
The picture is small, only about 41 by 32 centimetres.
In the summer of 1887 he painted himself in a straw hat several times.
Miss Adelaide Milton de Groot left this painting to the Met in 1967.

About the artist

Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) was born in the Netherlands and worked there, in Paris, in the south of France at Arles and Saint-Rémy, and finally at Auvers-sur-Oise.

In only about ten years as an artist he created hundreds of vibrant paintings, among them Sunflowers, The Starry Night, Irises and The Bedroom.

He wrote more than 800 letters, most of them to his beloved brother Theo, full of warmth and of his joy in color and nature.

Vincent van Gogh ›

Where it is today: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York · Museum page