Three Important Women in Vincent van Gogh’s Life ‘Behind every great man is a great woman’, this well-known proverb certainly also applies to Vincent van Gogh. Although he only rose to real fame after his death, these three women undoubtedly contributed to this …

Van Gogh was impressed with these ‘common’ women. He perceived an authenticity in them that he wanted to capture on canvas. Van Gogh painted this portrait in one sitting. For the shiny earring he applied a thick blob of white-and-pink paint, which broke off later.

Title: Women Picking Olives. Artist: Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, Zundert 1853–1890 Auvers-sur-Oise) Date: 1889. Medium: Oil on canvas. Dimensions: 28 5/8 x 36 in. (72.7 x 91.4 cm) Classification: Paintings. Credit Line: The Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg Collection, Gift of Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg, 1995, Bequest of Walter H. Annenberg, 2002.

Van Gogh remarked that "she had a good eye and took the best." He began the portraits just before his breakdown in Arles, in December 1888, and completed them in early 1889, calling them "La Berceuse," meaning "lullaby, or woman who rocks the cradle," indicated by the rope held in the sitter’s hand, which is attached to the unseen cradle.

He painted the woman's face and long, loose hair with broad brushstrokes, thereby successfully introducing volume and life into them. He probably depicted the same woman in another painting as well.

Van Gogh made the painting, Memory of the Garden at Etten, to depict an older woman who he envisioned as his mother and a younger woman in a plaid shawl to represent his sister Wil and the lovely gardens of the Netherlands.

This woman is without doubt Agostina Segatori (1843-1910), a former model of Corot, Gérôme and Manet with whom Van Gogh seems to have had a brief love affair a few months before this portrait was painted.

The sitter for Portrait of a young woman is probably ‘a country girl’. It is one of three works that Van Gogh makes of her. He places her against a red background with green curved brushstrokes and uses a second colour contrast, blue and orange, for her clothing. Unfortunately, the red has discoloured to a drab red over time.

Title: Cypresses and Two Women. Artist: Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, Zundert 1853–1890 Auvers-sur-Oise) Date: February 1890. Medium: Oil on canvas on panel. Dimensions: 17 1/8 × 10 3/4 in. (43.5 × 27.2 cm) Classification: Paintings. Credit Line: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation) Object Number: VGC.001

The artwork titled “Portrait of a Woman,” created by Vincent van Gogh in 1887, is an oil painting on canvas that belongs to the Post-Impressionism movement. This portrait genre piece is housed in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands.