Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette is a painting Vincent van Gogh made during the winter of 1885 to 1886, while briefly enrolled at the Antwerp academy, held at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. It shows a human skeleton with a lit cigarette clamped between its teeth, painted during a period biographers describe as a genuine breakdown: his teachers and fellow students had turned against him, the academy judges recommended he be sent down to draw with ten-year-olds, and he wrote to his brother Theo of feeling as if he had spent ten years in prison when he looked at himself in the mirror[1]. One biographer treats the picture as functioning, in effect, as a self-portrait painted through the mask of death rather than a likeness, made at a moment when images of decay and dying preoccupied him[1]. The same difficult Antwerp winter also produced two discoveries that reshaped the rest of his career: the paintings of Rubens and cheap Japanese woodblock prints sold near the docks, both pushing him toward the bolder colour that would define his later work[2][3].
Where it is held
Held at Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
The painting is held at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, part of the collection descended from the artist's family estate. It was kept for decades by Theo van Gogh's widow, Jo van Gogh-Bonger, and later by their son Vincent Willem van Gogh, and the collection is now administered by the Vincent van Gogh Foundation[4].
A breakdown at the academy
By early February 1886 Van Gogh's time at the Antwerp academy was collapsing. He had been ejected from one class, humiliated in another, and was awaiting the outcome of a third. His fellow students mocked his work and avoided him, and when he submitted a drawing for the term's competition he joked bitterly that he expected to place last, only for the judges to recommend he be moved down to an elementary class alongside ten-year-old children[1]. He described the collapse to Theo as absolute and sudden, and in the weeks that followed he became fixated on his own reflection, writing that he looked as if he had spent ten years in prison, stiff and awkward, and that nothing could cure or save him[1].
A skull with a cigarette
Sometime that winter, in the grip of that same fixation on decay and dying, Van Gogh set a canvas up in front of a human skeleton, put a lit cigarette between its teeth, and painted it. One biographer describes the result as functioning as Van Gogh's first self-portrait, a way of putting his own sense of physical and mental collapse onto canvas without painting his own face directly[1]. He was, by his own account, dining on little but bread and coffee, losing his teeth, and watching his health deteriorate badly enough that it affected his ability to work.
Two discoveries that reshaped his work
The same Antwerp winter that produced the breakdown also gave Van Gogh two encounters that changed the direction of his art. He became captivated by the paintings of Rubens, writing to Theo that Rubens painted and drew with a quick hand and without hesitation, and that colour, while not everything in a picture, was what gave it life; he added carmine, cobalt blue and emerald green to what had been an earthy palette[3]. In a shop near the waterfront he also found inexpensive Japanese woodblock prints for the first time, and their flat, simplified shapes struck him as strikingly modern[3]. A biographer of the period argues that this Antwerp shift, not the move to Paris that followed soon after, was where Van Gogh first began lightening and loosening his handling of colour[2].
Common questions
When did Van Gogh paint Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette?
In the winter of 1885 to 1886, during his brief and difficult enrolment at the Antwerp academy[1].
Why did Van Gogh paint a skeleton smoking a cigarette?
It was made during a period biographers describe as a genuine breakdown, when academy rejection and thoughts of decay and death preoccupied him; one account treats it as functioning as a self-portrait[1].
Where is the painting held today?
At the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, part of the collection descended through the artist's family[4].
Sources
Editorial draws on the following references, verified against the museum and public-domain image record for this work.
- [1] book Steven Naifeh, Van Gogh Used for: this artwork.
- [2] book Simon Schama, The Power of Art Used for: this artwork.
- [3] book Susie Hodge;, Vincent Van Gogh Used for: this artwork.
- [4] book Jan Greenberg, Vincent Van Gogh Used for: this artwork.
Editorial overseen by Solis Prints. Sources verified 2026-09-03. Click a source for details, or hover over [N] in the page above to preview.
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