polity kingdom of netherlandsconcept:era modern
The Potato Eaters
Oil on canvas (1885) by Vincent van Gogh, depicting a peasant family sharing a meal of potatoes by lamplight. Van Gogh's first major composition, painted in Nuenen in the Dutch dark-palette manner. Held at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.
Scholarly Significance
Van Gogh's first major statement painting; an early masterwork from his Dutch period representing peasant labor and dignity.
Notes
- ·Painted April–May 1885 in Nuenen, North Brabant, Netherlands.
- ·Van Gogh wrote to Theo: 'I have tried to emphasize that those people, eating their potatoes in the lamplight, have dug the earth with those very hands they put in the dish.'
- ·The dark, earth-tone palette reflects Van Gogh's admiration for Millet and Dutch peasant painting traditions.
- ·A lithograph of this composition also exists (also 1885); this oil is the definitive version.
- ·Van Gogh considered this his first serious attempt at a finished composition. His Paris period (1886–1888) then transformed his palette entirely.
- ·Donated to the Van Gogh Museum by Vincent Willem van Gogh in 1962.