Which Van Gogh painting shows a skeleton smoking a cigarette?

The Van Gogh painting that shows a skeleton smoking a cigarette is *Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette*.

Van Gogh most likely painted this small oil-on-canvas work during the winter of 1885–86, while studying at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. Academic artists commonly studied skeletons to understand human anatomy, and Van Gogh appears to have turned that routine into a darkly humorous image. The work is often read as a vanitas or memento mori, reflecting on mortality.

The cigarette can invite a misleading interpretation: the painting is not simply an anti-smoking warning. Van Gogh himself was a committed smoker and continued smoking for much of his life. The picture is also sometimes dated simply to 1886, but the precise date is uncertain. It belongs to the Van Gogh Museum’s collection in Amsterdam, not to the museums associated with his better-known Paris or Saint-Rémy paintings.