This vigorously painted portrait of Augustine Roulin and her infant daughter, Marcelle, is one of Van Gogh's many evocative portraits of the Roulin family, made in November and December, 1888, some six months after the artist relocated from Paris to Arles. The postman Joseph Roulin and his family lived down the street from Van Gogh. Their house became a sympathetic refuge for the troubled young artist. The Lehman picture is essentially a portrait of a fleshy baby, propped upright by her mother. Yet Madame Roulin is scarcely a presence, her profile head scumbled and brushed in a perfunctory manner, barely differentiated from the canvas's thick, flat yellow ground. Only her hard-worked hands summon attention. It has been said that the furrowed brow and jowled cheeks of the baby Marcelle carry an aspect of Van Gogh's mature figures, roughly marked by life. Soon after completing the Lehman portrait, Van Gogh embarked on another of the same subject (Philadelphia Museum of Art). While of a similar palette, it lacks the potent, energetic surface of the Lehman canvas.
