This haunting portrait was completed in January 1889 and is housed in the Courtauld Institute Galleries, London. On 23 December 1888, frustrated and ill, van Gogh confronted Gauguin with a razor blade, but in panic, left and fled to a local brothel. Intensely lonely at the time, he often visited the prostitutes at a brothel on Rue du Bout d’Aeles as his single point of sensuous contact with other people. While there, he cut off his left ear, which he wrapped in newspaper and handed to a prostitute named Rachel, asking her to “keep this object carefully.” He staggered home, where he was later found by Gauguin lying unconscious, his head covered in blood.
Van Gogh was taken to a hospital and remained in a critical state for several days. He asked for Gauguin continually, but the Frenchman stayed away. Gauguin told one of the policeman attending the case, “Be kind enough, Monsieur, to awaken this man with great care, and if he asks for me tell him I have left for Paris; the sight of me might prove fatal for him.” Gauguin wrote to Theo, “His state is worse; he wants to sleep with the patients, chase the nurses, and washes himself in the coal bucket. That is to say, he continues the biblical mortifications.” Gauguin left Arles and never saw van Gogh again.
In January 1889, van Gogh returned to the Yellow House, but spent the following month between the hospital and home, suffering from hallucinations and delusions that he was being poisoned. In March, the police closed his house after a petition by 30 townspeople, who called him the ‘redheaded madman’. At this difficult time van Gogh painted this self-portrait, clearly emphasising the bandaged ear, which covers the left side of his face, contrasting strongly with the bright, vivid colours of the Japanese woodcut on the wall. The thick coat covering the artist might suggest that he seeks protection from the outside world, if not the horrors in his mind.