Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat (obverse: The Potato Peeler)

In the pictureA man in a yellow straw hat, his shoulders turned slightly, looks out at us. A red beard, a blue work jacket, a blue-green background. The face, clothes and background are all made of short, dense dots and dashes of color, so up close the forms scatter and from a distance they come together again. His gaze looks tired yet sharp.

BackgroundHe painted it in Paris in 1887. In this period Van Gogh absorbed Impressionism and Seurat's pointillism and abandoned the dark colors of his Dutch years; unable to afford models, he painted more than twenty self-portraits looking in a mirror. On the back of this canvas is another painting (a woman peeling potatoes). He used both sides to save canvas.

Puzzle tipThe colors split clearly into four masses (yellow hat, flesh-toned face, blue clothes, blue-green background), so 24 to 100 pieces is easy going. At 300 pieces the background and clothes, both in the blue family, become confusing; tell them apart by the brushstrokes, which scatter in all directions in the background but run neatly vertical in the clothes. For the face, start with the eyes and beard.