Self-Portrait With a Bandaged Ear

The existence of two independent paintings of himself with a bandaged ear — this version and the better-known Courtauld Gallery canvas — suggests that Van Gogh returned to the subject deliberately, treating the self-portrait as a form of working through what had happened rather than simply recording it. Both versions were made in January 1889, weeks after the December 23rd crisis, while he was recovering at the Yellow House before his voluntary admission to Saint-Paul-de-Mausole in May. The slight differences in palette, background, and expression between the two versions show that he was not copying himself but returning independently to the same confrontation with a different result. This second version, with its unlocated provenance, is less well known than the Courtauld canvas but equally important as evidence of the seriousness with which Van Gogh used self-portraiture as a tool of self-examination — a practice running from his first Paris self-portraits through his Saint-Rémy period.

Compared to the Courtauld version, this rendering tends toward a slightly different color temperature and compositional arrangement. The paint application remains controlled and deliberate, belying the circumstances of its creation.