The Van Gogh Self-Portrait as a Painter was one of many contrasting self-portraits Vincent Van Gogh painted. It was also the last known work produced by Van Gogh in Paris.
Here we see Van Gogh portrayed as an exhausted and perhaps disillusioned painter, as described in a long, conversational letter to his sister, Willemien van Gogh, in June of 1988…
“Here’s an impression of mine, which is the result of a portrait that I painted in the mirror, and which Theo has: a pink-grey face with green eyes, ash-coloured hair, wrinkles in forehead and around the mouth, stiffly wooden, a very red beard, quite unkempt and sad, but the lips are full, a blue smock of coarse linen, and a palette with lemon yellow, vermilion, Veronese green, cobalt blue, in short all the colours, except of the orange beard, on the palette, the only whole colours, though.”
