Self-Portrait with Pipe and Straw Hat

This self-portrait from Van Gogh's Paris period shows him wearing the straw hat he adopted as a practical accessory for outdoor painting, and smoking the pipe that appears repeatedly across his self-examinations of this era. Made in 1887 while he was living with his brother Theo and absorbing the lessons of Impressionism and Pointillism, the work documents his evolution away from the dark palette of his Dutch years. He produced more than twenty self-portraits in Paris, using himself as a reliable model when he could not afford professional sitters. The pipe and hat together construct a persona — the working artist, outdoors, purposeful — that served as much as self-assertion as self-study.

The background is built from short, parallel comma strokes in complementary blue and orange tones, showing direct influence from Seurat and Signac. The face is more loosely rendered, with flowing strokes that model the features in warm yellows and pinks.