Vincent asked his brother Theo to "see if you could get, not too dear, the lithograph after Delacroix's Tasso in the Madhouse, since I think the figure there must have some affinity with this fine portrait of Brias [Bruyas]."
Van Gogh saw himself in this portrait: the red-headed outcast, being mocked through the windows. (Vincent received occasional taunts from children outside the Yellow House.)
