Head of a Peasant Woman with Dark Cap

Van Gogh's 1885 portrait study of a peasant woman with a dark cap belongs to the comprehensive series of such heads he made at Nuenen in preparation for and alongside The Potato Eaters. The Musée d'Orsay's holding of this work marks it as one of the most distinguished versions, the museum having acquired it as a significant example of Van Gogh's formative period. The dark cap — a marker of regional and social identity — frames the face with a simplicity that Van Gogh found aesthetically useful as well as documentarily important. These heads are remarkable as works of sympathetic social portraiture.

The dark cap creates a strong framing element around the face, the relationship between cap and face providing the composition's essential contrast. Van Gogh's Nuenen palette — dark browns, olive greens, ochre — models the weathered face with direct tonal contrasts. The paint surface has the physical weight of deeply applied impasto in the darker areas.