Sorrow

Vincent van Gogh created this powerful drawing in April 1882 during his time in The Hague. The work depicts Sien Hoornik, a pregnant prostitute with whom Van Gogh lived and whom he hoped to rescue from her difficult circumstances. She sits hunched over, her face buried in her arms, embodying complete despair.

Van Gogh considered this one of his best figure drawings and made several versions. He inscribed one with a quote: "How can there be on earth a woman alone, abandoned?" The stark honesty of the image reflects Van Gogh's deep empathy for society's outcasts. Though he worked primarily in pencil and chalk for this piece, the emotional intensity prefigures the powerful expression of his later painted works.