Madame Roulin and Her Baby

This energetically painted portrait of Augustine Roulin and her infant daughter Marcelle belongs to Vincent van Gogh’s celebrated series depicting the Roulin family, created approximately six months after his move from Paris to Arles. Having portrayed each member of the local postman Joseph Roulin’s family, Van Gogh here places particular emphasis on the chubby-cheeked child, whose animated expression and thickly worked brushstrokes suggest she may have posed directly for the artist while cradled in her mother’s arms. By contrast, Augustine Roulin appears as a more restrained and abbreviated presence, serving primarily as a compositional anchor for the vividly rendered infant.