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

La Berceuse — the lullaby — was one of Van Gogh's most ambitious and personally significant works, of which he painted five versions between December 1888 and March 1889. The subject is Augustine Roulin, wife of the postman Joseph Roulin who became one of Van Gogh's most important friends in Arles. Van Gogh conceived La Berceuse as a consoling image, imagining it hanging between two Sunflower canvases in a triptych that could bring comfort to Breton fishermen at sea. The Museum of Fine Arts Boston holds one of the five versions, all painted during the crisis period following his breakdown.

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.