Lullaby: Madame Augustine Roulin Rocking a Cradle (La Berceuse)

La Berceuse — 'the lullaby' or 'the cradle-rocker' — was Van Gogh's most conceptually elaborate project: five versions of Augustine Roulin painted between December 1888 and March 1889, conceived as a consolatory image for Breton fishermen at sea. He imagined the painting hanging between two Sunflower canvases in a kind of secular triptych, the golden sunflowers flanking the lullaby-woman as a symbol of warmth and maternal comfort — an image that could substitute for the actual human consolation he himself lacked. The project was born directly from his crisis: he began the first version just days before his breakdown in December 1888 and continued working on it during his recovery at the Arles hospital. The Museum of Fine Arts Boston's version is among the five, all slightly different in colour, handling, and the density of the extraordinary wallpaper background — one of the most deliberately non-naturalistic colour environments in his work.

Van Gogh's palette for La Berceuse is extraordinarily intense: the figure's green dress against a floral wallpaper of acid pink, red, and green creates a deliberately non-naturalistic color environment.