In late 1888 Van Gogh's life in Arles fell apart. After a breakdown that ended with the loss of part of his ear and the departure of Gauguin, he spent time in hospital. When he came back to work in January 1889, one of the first portraits he made was of Augustine Roulin, the wife of the postal worker Joseph Roulin, who had become his friend.
She sits in a green jacket, holding the cord that rocks a cradle outside the picture. Behind her is a wallpaper of flowers in red and green, which is as bold as the figure. Van Gogh called the painting La Berceuse, which means the lullaby, or the woman who rocks the cradle.
He had an idea about what it might do. He imagined it hanging in the cabin of a fishing boat, where lonely sailors would look at it and feel like children being comforted. He also thought of displaying it between two of his sunflower paintings, like the center of a triptych.
He liked the subject so much that he made several versions, and this one is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Each copy changes the colors a little, and each has the same quiet, heavy kindness.
Van Gogh's La Berceuse appears on our: