In May 1890, Van Gogh left the south and settled in Auvers-sur-Oise, a small town north of Paris, where he rented a room at the inn of Arthur Ravoux. This portrait, completed during the last months of the artist’s life, depicts Ravoux’s 13-year-old daughter, Adeline. Van Gogh wrote that rather than photographic resemblance, he wanted his portraits to convey the “impassioned aspects” of contemporary life through the “modern taste for color.”