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Permanent collection, The Netherlands, 1880-1885
Head of a prostitute, 1885Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)
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The woman with her hair loose was one of Van Gogh’s first models in Antwerp. In a letter, he described this work at length: ‘In the female portrait I have introduced lighter tones into the flesh – white tinted with carmine, vermilion, yellow and a light ground of gray-yellow, from which the face is separated only by the black hair. Lilac tones in the clothes.’
This change in his palette came after he had seen the paintings of Peter Paul Rubens in the Antwerp museum. The 17th-century master’s treatment of hands and faces fascinated him: ‘it is so alive – [look at] the heads alone.’
