The Old Church Tower at Nuenen ('The Peasants' Churchyard')
Vincent van Gogh (1853 - 1890), Nuenen, May-June 1885
oil on canvas, 65 cm x 80 cm
Credits (obliged to state): Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
Van Gogh lived near this ruined church tower in Nuenen, in the Dutch province of North Brabant. The tower had remained standing when the church collapsed a century earlier, but at the time of this painting it was being demolished. The steeple is already gone.
In a letter to his brother Theo, Vincent explained what he wanted this painting to express. He saw the dilapidated church tower as a symbol of the ephemeral nature of religion. In his eyes, it formed a stark contrast with the country graveyard next to it. There, farmers lay buried in the same soil they once had tilled. This showed that their lives were rooted in the eternal truths of death and rebirth.
- F-number
- F0084
- JH-number
- JH0772
- Object number
- s0002V1962
- Dimensions
- 65 cm x 80 cm, 87.5 cm x 102.5 cm, 6 cm
- Provenance
- Sent by the artist from Nuenen to his brother Theo van Gogh, Paris, at the beginning of June 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; given on loan by Jo van Gogh-Bonger to the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, from 1917 to 1919; given on loan by Vincent Willem van Gogh, Laren to the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, since 16 December 1930; transferred by Vincent Willem van Gogh 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.
- artist
- Vincent van Gogh
- Credits (obliged to state)
- Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
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