Portrait of a prostitute by Vincent Van Gogh in the year 1885. With her hair in a bun and her jewellery, this woman looks perfectly respectable to us. But to Van Gogh's contemporaries, her low-cut dress and eye makeup told a different story. Van Gogh painted this woman shortly after moving to Antwerp (BE). He needed models so that he could practise portrait painting. Only 'ladies of easy virtue' could be persuaded to pose for a painter they had never met before.