In the context of this artwork, explore the Women of the Peasant character studies.
Van Gogh made many studies of women, a large number made in 1885. Of painting women, Van Gogh commented that he preferred to paint women in blue denim rather than his sisters in refined dresses.  This is a sampling of some of his works.
Gordina de Groot (called Sien by Hulsker on the strength of a single reference to the name in van Gogh's letters), who sat for Head of a Woman (F160), was one of the daughters of the De Groot family, the subjects of The Potato Eaters (Gordina is the figure on the left in that painting).  Van Gogh made at least 20 studies while in Nuenen of Gordina, who possessed the "coarse, flat faces, low foreheads and thick lips, not sharp but full" of peasants that he admired in Jean-François Millet's work.  Vincent signed this study, one of the few character studies that he signed.Head of a woman, 1884 (F1182, the image is not shown), was a drawing Van Gogh made of a peasant woman from Nuenen.  Her face, worn by a difficult life, is symbolic of the peasant's hard life.  Van Gogh made the studies of heads, arms and hands and building blocks for the large painting The Potato Eaters that he made in 1885.The working class woman in Head of a Woman with her Hair Loose (F206) is portrayed with seeming eroticism, her hair disheveled and in a state of undress. In July 2022, an x-ray of the painting Head of a Peasant Woman with White Cap uncovered a hidden self-portrait of Van Gogh on the back of the original artwork.
Potato Eaters Jean-François Millet Peasant peasant The Potato Eaters Jean-François Millet's Nuenen working class