No doubt one of Van Gogh's most macabre works, Skull with Burng Cigarette is probably the most distguished of his patgs from the Antwerp period. It's likely that the work was pated from a skeleton an anatomy class while Vcent was studyg art. A sketch, Hangg Skeleton and Cat, from the same period would appear to confirm this. The work--a stark momento mori--was produced a time when Van Gogh's health was poor (due to stomach ailments and rottg teeth) and may reflect Vcent's own concerns about his state of well-beg. Some terpret the work as beg a statement of defiance agast Vcent's falterg health.This disturbg patg may have been fluenced by the similar macabre works produced by the Belgian artist Felicien Rops. It's known that Vcent owned a copy of Rops' Uilenspiegel, a satirical arts journal and the work of Rops, The Husbands' Tra: The Death of the Sner, suggests a clear fluence on Vcent's own two skull and skeleton works cited here.Van Gogh may also have been fluenced by one of his own countrymen, the 17th century Dutch artist, Hercules Segers, who also produced a disturbg work of a skull. It remas uncerta whether Van Gogh was aware of Segers' works, but he did, of course, have a thorough knowledge of Dutch paters throughout the 17th to 19th centuries.
