Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat (obverse: The Potato Peeler)

Painting • Paintings

Created in 1887, this work belongs firmly within the portrait tradition of American painting. Vincent van Gogh worked at a moment when the young republic was still deciding what its own art should look like — how much to borrow from Europe, how much to invent from its own landscape and daily life. Every gesture, fabric, and gleam of light was pitched at an audience learning to take American subjects seriously.

As Oil on canvas (16 x 12 1/2 in. (40.6 x 31.8 cm)), the work shows the tool marks and layering choices typical of Vincent van Gogh's output in this period — decisions about ground, underpainting, and glaze that a photograph can only partly convey.

Look closely and the painting opens up. Objects you might pass over — a folded letter, a half-drawn curtain, the angle of a glance — were placed to be read. The sitter is constructed: clothes, pose, and attributes were chosen to project status, virtue, and lineage.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York now holds the work, where conservators and historians continue to revisit its condition and attribution. Each generation of scholarship adds a layer to how Vincent van Gogh's output from this period is understood.

“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”