Portrait of Camille Roulin

In the late fall of 1888, Vincent decided it would be a good idea to paint the entire family of his friend, Joseph Roulin.  In his December 4th letter to Theo, he said:

"But I have made portraits of a whole family, that of the postman whose head I had done previously - the man, his wife, the baby, the young boy, and the son of sixteen, all of them real characters and very French, though they look like Russians."

This is the portrait of the "little boy" - Camille - who was eleven years old at the time.  The painting is now owned by the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

Credits

Quoted passage, letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh dated 4 December 1888.  Translated by Mrs. Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, edited by Robert Harrison, published in The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh, Publisher: Bulfinch, 1991, number 560.