Adeline Ravoux

Painted at Auvers-sur-Oise in the last months of his life, this bust portrait shows Adeline Ravoux, the thirteen-year-old daughter of the innkeeper where van Gogh lodged after leaving the asylum at Saint-Rémy in May 1890. The simplified, slightly tilted head and the unblended bands of cool blue and pale flesh show the expressive economy of his very last style, when he worked quickly on a series of portraits of the village family. He thought the picture one of his best; it remained in the Ravoux family for generations before entering the Cleveland collection.