Half Figure of an Angel (after Rembrandt)

Van Gogh's Half Figure of an Angel (after Rembrandt), painted at Saint-Rémy in 1889, belongs to his series of copies after Old Masters made during his asylum period as a way of maintaining connection with artistic tradition while too unwell to work independently. Rembrandt's angels — his ability to suggest the divine within the human — fascinated Van Gogh throughout his life, and this free interpretation brings his own chromatic and painterly language to the Dutch master's conception. The work is currently in a private collection, one of the least-known Van Gogh copies after Old Masters.

Van Gogh's interpretation of the Rembrandt angel translates the Old Master's dark, spiritual tonality into his own chromatic language — warmer, more intense, his Saint-Rémy brushwork animating surfaces that Rembrandt would have treated with controlled sfumato. The angel's half-figure emerges from the surrounding atmosphere with characteristic Van Gogh immediacy.