Woman Sewing
March-April 1885
oil on canvas
Credits (obliged to state): Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
Van Gogh painted this woman when he was preparing to paint his now world-famous picture The Potato Eaters. Would he paint the scene by daylight or lamplight? He couldn’t decide, so he was experimenting with all sorts of interior light effects.
In this picture, he was attempting to paint a figure against the light. It was hard to do, he wrote to his brother Theo, ‘it’s a difficult effect’. With the almost black head of the woman and using a lot of white in the window, he succeeded in achieving a strong contrast. He concentrated the light from the window mainly on the woman’s hands.
- F-number
- F0071
- JH-number
- JH0719
- Object number
- s0007V1962
- Dimensions
- 43.2 x 34.2 , 49 x 40.5 , 5.5
- Provenance
- With his brother Theo van Gogh, Paris, after April 1885; after his death on 25 January 1891, inherited by his widow, Jo van Gogh-Bonger, and their son, Vincent Willem van Gogh, Paris; administered until her death on 2 September 1925 by Jo van Gogh-Bonger, Bussum/Amsterdam/Laren; transferred by Vincent Willem van Gogh, Laren, to the Vincent van Gogh Foundation, Amsterdam, 10 July 1962; agreement concluded between the Vincent van Gogh Foundation and the State of the Netherlands, in which the preservation and management of the collection, and its placing in the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, to be realized in Amsterdam, is entrusted to the State, 21 July 1962; given on loan until the opening of the museum on 2 June 1973 to the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; on permanent loan to the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh from 2 June 1973 and at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, since 1 July 1994.
- Credits (obliged to state)
- Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
De Aardappeleters: misser of meesterwerk?, 8 October 2021-13 February 2022
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De aardappeleters : Van Goghs eerste meesterwerk, Amsterdam, 2021, p. 64-65