![Vincent van Gogh - In the Café, Agostina Segatori in Le Tambourin [1887]](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7191/26992922542_6aefcf0159_b.jpg)
Agostina Segatori, the owner of Café du Tambourin, had a brief relationship with Van Gogh. She is shown here with a cigarette in her fingers, while the two saucers under the glass on the table tell us that Agostina is on her second beer. Drinking and smoking in a café were not appropriate behaviour for respectable ladies, only for more artistic, liberated types. A lone woman at a café table was a popular subject for young Parisian artists. Van Gogh followed the example here of his friend Toulouse-Lautrec , who had already painted this motif several times. The two artists worked together intensively in the early months of 1887. The composition, the loose, impressionist style and the transparent colours of Agostina’s portrait are clearly linked to Lautrec’s painting Poudre de riz. Van Gogh put on an exhibition at Le Tambourin to sell his collection of Japanese prints. The picture of a pair of geishas in the background of this portrait suggests that Van Gogh painted Agostina while it was still running.
[Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam - Oil on canvas, 55.5 cm x 47 cm]