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A rural landscape scene of flat farm fields with an unmanned cart in the center.　

Harvest has happened in this placid scene, as evident by a haystack and ladder on the left. The blue cart on wheels is without horse or farmer, an unmanned plow rests towards the right. The peaceful scene is drawn with varying textures that define fields and create depth. A few small houses dot the landscape, there’s a sketchy suggestion of two people in the distance. A reed-like fence creates a diagonal boundary between the grassy foreground and rural setting behind it. Hills are suggested in the background, the sky is made of white textures indicating overcast weather.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1943.279
People
Vincent van Gogh, Dutch (Groot Zundert (Zundert), The Netherlands 1853 - 1890 Auvers-sur-Oise, France)
Title
The Blue Cart
Other Titles
Alternate Title: Harvest at La Crau
Classification
Drawings
Work Type
drawing
Date
1888
Culture
Dutch
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/299927

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Graphite, black chalk, oil pastel(?), brown ink, watercolor, and gouache on tan laid paper
Dimensions
39.4 x 52.3 cm (15 1/2 x 20 9/16 in.)
frame: 63.5 × 75.6 cm (25 × 29 3/4 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • inscription: Inscribed, graphite (barely visible in middleground field at right): vert clair --- (illegible)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Wilhelmina van Gogh. [Artz en De Bois, The Hague, July-September 1912]; Erich Schall, Berlin. P. Seligmann, Cologne. F. Haniel, Wistinghausen. [Wildenstein and Co., New York, 30 November 1931], sold; to Grenville L. Winthrop, New York, bequest; to the Fogg Art Museum, 1943.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop
Accession Year
1943
Object Number
1943.279
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Julius Meier-Graefe, Auguste Renoir, Mit hundert Abbildungen, R. Piper & Co Verlag (Munich, Germany, 1911), vol. 2, pl. 44
  • Jacob Baart de la Faille, L'oeuvre de Vincent van Gogh: catalogue raisonné, Les Editions G. van Oest (Paris, 1928), vol. 3, no. 1484, vol. 4, pl. 166
  • Julius Meier-Graefe, Vincent van Gogh: Der Zeichner, O. Wacker (Berlin, 1928), pl. 20
  • Wilhelm Uhde, Vincent van Gogh, Editions Phaidon (Vienna, Austria, 1936), repr. no. 45
  • René Huyghe, Van Gogh, Braun (Paris, 1937), pl. 15
  • Douglas Cooper, Drawings and Watercolours by Vincent van Gogh, Macmillan, Inc. (New York, 1955), no. 22
  • Vincent van Gogh, The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh (Greenwich, CT, 1958), vol. 2, no. 496
  • Ira Moskowitz and Maurice Sérullaz, Drawings of the Masters: French Impressionists, Shorewood Publishers Inc. (New York, NY, 1962), pl. 107
  • Mark Roskill, "Van Gogh's 'Blue Cart' and His Creative Process", Oud Holland, Netherlands Institute for Art History ('s-Gravenhage, 1966), vol. 81, pp. 3-20, pl. 2
  • Dorothy W. Gillerman, ed., Grenville L. Winthrop: Retrospective for a Collector, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, 1969), cat. no. 124, repr.
  • Jacob Baart de la Faille, The Works of Vincent Van Gogh, His Paintings and Drawings, Reynal (New York, NY, 1970), no. F1484
  • Paolo Lecaldano, L'Opera pittorica completa di Van Gogh, Rizzoli (Milan, Italy, 1971), pg. 209, no. 523B, repro.
  • Meyer Schapiro, Vincent (New York, 1972), pg. 80
  • Charles W. Millard, "A Chronology for Van Gogh's Drawings of 1888", Master Drawings, Master Drawings Association (New York, Summer 1974), vol. 12, no. 2, pg. 159, pl. 26
  • Louis van Tilborgh, Van Gogh and Millet, exh. cat., Waanders Uitgevers (Zwolle, 1989), pg. 68, n. 1
  • Eric M. Rosenberg and Miriam Stewart, The Harvest of 1830: The Barbizon Legacy, exh. cat., Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1990), p. 22
  • Johannes van der Wolk and Ronald Pickvance, Vincent van Gogh: Drawings, exh. cat., Arnoldo Mondadori Arte (Milan, 1990), pg. 225, fig. 33
  • Evert van Uitert, Louis van Tilborgh, and Sjraar van Heugten, Vincent van Gogh: Paintings, exh. cat., Arnoldo Mondadori Arte and De Luca Edizioni d'Arte (Milan and Rome, 1990), pg. 122, fig. 46a
  • J. F. Heijbroek and E. L. Wouthuysen, Kunst, Kennis en Commercie: De Kunsthandelaar J.H. de Bois (1878-1946), Contact (Amsterdam, 1993), pp. 40, repro, 205
  • Richard Mühlberger, What Makes a Van Gogh a Van Gogh?, Metropolitan Museum of Art / Viking (New York, 1993), repr. p. 24 (color); detail repr. p 25 (color)
  • Elizabeth Nicoline Heenk, "Vincent Van Gogh's Drawings: An Analysis of their Production and Uses" (Thesis, Courtauld Institute, University of London, 1995), Unpublished, p. 173
  • Griselda Pollock and Fred Orton, Avant-Gardes and Partisans Reviewed, Manchester University Press (Manchester, England, 1996), repr. fig. 15
  • Jan Hulsker, The New Complete Van Gogh: Paintings, Drawings, Sketches: Revised and enlarged, J. M. Meulenhoff (Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1996), no. 1438, repr.
  • Impressionist and Modern Art, Part 1, auct. cat., Sotheby's, London (June 24, 1997), fig. 1, under no. 7
  • Masterpieces of world art : Fogg Art Museum, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Busch-Reisinger Museum, 1997
  • Richard Kendall, Van Gogh's Van Goghs: Masterpieces from the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C, 1998), repr. fig. 27
  • Stephan Wolohojian, ed., A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press (U.S.) (New York, 2003), cat. no. 46, repr. (color), frontispiece (color), p. 34
  • Impressionist and Modern Art, Part One, auct. cat., Sotheby's, New York (New York, November 5, 2003), under lot 6, fig. 1
  • Stephan Wolohojian, Ingres, Burne-Jones, Whistler, Renoir... La Collection Grenville L. Winthrop, exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and Réunion des Musées Nationaux (Paris, France, 2003), no. 46, repr.
  • Sjraar van Heugten, Van Gogh Draughtsman: The Masterpieces, exh. cat., Van Gogh Museum and Mercatorfonds (Amsterdam/Brussels, 2005), p. 110, ill. 96
  • Colta Ives and Susan Alyson Stein, Vincent van Gogh: The Drawings, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 2005), under cat. no. 62, fig. 141 (color)
  • Klaus Albrecht Schröder and Heinz Widauer, Van Gogh: Heartfelt Lines, exh. cat., Albertina (Vienna, 2008), p. 298 ill. 1
  • Louis-Antoine Prat, Le dessin français au XIXe siècle, Somogy Éditions d'Art (Paris, 2011), p. 563, repr. p. 563 as fig. 1356 [with incorrect location]
  • Louis van Tilborgh, Van Gogh, Phaidon (London, 2015), p. 41, pl. 44
  • Hein-Thomas Schulze Altcappenberg and Anna Marie Pfäfflin, Romantik und Moderne: Zeichnung als Kunstform von Caspar David Friedrich bis Vincent van Gogh, exh. cat., Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Berlin, 2016), p. 74, repr. p. 75 as pl. 7
  • Jan Blanc, Van Gogh: Ni Dieu Ni Maître, Éditions Citadelles & Mazenod (Paris, 2017), pp. 158-159, repr. p. 158 as ill. 146
  • "The Harvest: painted in a single summer's day, here's why this is Van Gogh's finest landscape", website, July 23, 2021, repr.; https://www.theartnewspaper.com/blog/the-harvest-is-this-van-gogh-s-finest-landscape [accessed 7-23-21]

Exhibition History

  • 19th Secession Exhibition, Berlin, Paul Cassirer, Berlin, 01/01/1909 - 01/01/1910
  • Chinese sculpture, bronzes, jades, paintings and drawings, Egyptian and Persian sculpture, Pre-Columbian art : selected from the collection of Grenville Lindall Winthrop, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 10/01/1943 - 02/28/1944
  • Grenville L. Winthrop: Retrospective for a Collector, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 01/23/1969 - 03/31/1969
  • The Harvest of 1830: the Barbizon Legacy, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 08/25/1990 - 10/21/1990
  • A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, Lyon, 03/15/2003 - 05/26/2003; National Gallery, London, 06/25/2003 - 09/14/2003; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 10/23/2003 - 01/25/2004
  • Flowers of Evil: Symbolist Drawings, 1870–1910, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 05/21/2016 - 08/14/2016

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu