''Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette'' ( nl, Kop van een skelet met brandende sigaret) is an early work by
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2 ...
. The small and undated oil-on-canvas painting featuring a skeleton and
cigarette
A cigarette is a narrow cylinder containing a combustible material, typically tobacco, that is rolled into thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end, causing it to smolder; the resulting smoke is orally inhaled via the opp ...
is part of the permanent collection of the Van Gogh Museum in
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
. It was most likely painted in the winter of 1885–86 as a satirical comment on conservative academic practices. Before it was common to use live humans as models, the academic routine included the study of skeletons to develop an understanding of human anatomy. Van Gogh was in Antwerp, Belgium at that time attending classes at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, which he later said were boring and taught him nothing.
Van Gogh included skeletons in another work from his Antwerp period, a sketch of a "Hanging skeleton and cat". In 1887–88, van Gogh painted two more paintings with skulls, the only other works of his (besides a drawing from the same period) to use skulls as a
motif
Motif may refer to:
General concepts
* Motif (chess composition), an element of a move in the consideration of its purpose
* Motif (folkloristics), a recurring element that creates recognizable patterns in folklore and folk-art traditions
* Moti ...
.
The work measures . It is considered a vanitas or
memento mori
''Memento mori'' (Latin for 'remember that you ave todie'Theo Van Gogh at the time of his death in 1891. It was inherited by his widow Johanna van Gogh-Bonger until her death in 1925, and then by their son
Vincent Willem van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...
until 1962, when it was acquired by the Van Gogh Foundation. It was on loan to the
Stedelijk Museum
The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (; Municipal Museum Amsterdam), colloquially known as the Stedelijk, is a museum for modern art, contemporary art, and design located in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
from 1962 to 1973, and has been on permanent loan to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam since 1973.Skull with Burning Cigarette vggallery.com
See also
*
List of works by Vincent van Gogh
List of works by Vincent van Gogh is an incomplete list of paintings and other works by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. The listing is ordered by year and then by catalogue number. While more accurate dating of Van Gogh's work is often difficu ...