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Jeanne Lafuye Trabuc, the wife of the head warden of the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole hospital at Saint-Rémy, was fifty-five years old when she posed for Van Gogh. For the artist she is a typical representative of the people similar to peasant women that he painted in Holland. Van Gogh selected for this bust portrait a rather standard composition. This is what he said about this painting in a letter to his sister: "The withered face is tired, pock-marked - a sunburnt, olive-coloured complexion, black hair. A faded black dress relieved by a geranium of a delicate pink, and the background in a neutral tone, between pink and green."