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Head and shoulders portrait of a man facing us and wearing a hat and jacket.

The man looks directly and intensely at us, his face has strong rugged features, a closed mouth, and broad nose, his ears appear slightly uneven on his head. Van Gogh’s ink strokes are similar to his paintings: short cross hatches, lines, and energetic dots to convey energy and texture. The lines and textures vary from light to dark to form the shape of the face. The hat and jacket have less definition and more blank space, drawing attention the face. The background is a series of uneven small dots scattered over the entire surface of the paper.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1943.515
People
Vincent van Gogh, Dutch (Groot Zundert (Zundert), The Netherlands 1853 - 1890 Auvers-sur-Oise, France)
Title
Peasant of the Camargue
Other Titles
Alternate Title: Portrait of Patience Escalier
Original Language Title: Paysan de la Camargue
Classification
Drawings
Work Type
drawing
Date
1888
Culture
Dutch
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/299938

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Brown ink over graphite on white wove paper
Dimensions
49.4 x 38 cm (19 7/16 x 14 15/16 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: brown ink, l.l.: Vincent
  • inscription: verso, along top edge, graphite: Inscription is partially torn off and difficult to read: rau- en[?] Enfr--- ynly[?]
  • inscription: verso, upper left, graphite: 108 cr [or ck?]
  • (not assigned): upper part of left edge: J WHAT
    [probably J WHATMAN TURKEY MILL 1879, trimmed off]

    Visible in raking light

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Mrs. J. van Gogh-Bonger, Amsterdam. Klas Fähraeus, Lindingö-Brevik, 1911. Thorsten Laurin, Stockholm. Grenville L. Winthrop, New York, New York (acquired in Paris through Martin Birnbaum), March 1931, 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
1943.515
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Vincent van Gogh and Emile Bernard, "Lettres de Vincent van Gogh à son frère Théodore", Mercure de France (Paris, August 1893), pg. 313
  • Waldemar George, Van Gogh (Paris, 1927), repro. (unpaged)
  • Jacob Baart de la Faille, L'oeuvre de Vincent van Gogh: catalogue raisonné, Les Editions G. van Oest (Paris, 1928), vol. 3, no. 1460, vol. 4, pl. 159
  • Julius Meier-Graefe, Vincent van Gogh: Der Zeichner, O. Wacker (Berlin, 1928), pl. 25
  • Wilhelm Uhde, Vincent van Gogh, Editions Phaidon (Vienna, Austria, 1936), repr. no. 24
  • René Huyghe, Van Gogh, Braun (Paris, 1937), pl. 19, also cover illustration
  • Agnes Mongan, "Drawings and Watercolours" [Winthrop collection], Bulletin of the Fogg Art Museum, Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, November 1943), vol. X, no. 2, pp. 53-57, no. F1460, repro.
  • "Sixteen Reproductions", Harvard Alumni Bulletin (Cambridge, MA, January 8, 1944), vol. XLVI, pp. 217-20, repr.
  • Carl Adam Johan Nordenfalk, Vincent van Gogh (Amsterdam, 1946 (reprinted 1990)), fig. 39
  • Agnes Mongan, ed., One Hundred Master Drawings, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, 1949), p. 192, repr.
  • Fritz Novotny, "Reflections on a Drawings by Van Gogh", Art Bulletin, College Art Association of America (New York, March 1953), vol. 35, pp. 39-41, figs. 3, 5
  • Emmy Andriesse and Willem Josiah de Gruyter, De wereld van Van Gogh, Daamen (The Hague, 1953), ill. p. 70
  • Carl Adam Johan Nordenfalk, The Life and Work of Van Gogh, Philosophical Library (New York, 1953), pg. 146, pl. 39
  • Agnes Mongan, "The Fogg Art Museum's Collection of Drawings", Harvard Library Bulletin, Harvard University (Cambridge, 1958), vol. 3, no. 2, March, pp. 5-9, p. 202
  • Jan Gerrit van Gelder, De Schoonheid van ons Land: Beeldende Kunsten, Prenten en Tekeningen, Uitgeverij Contact (Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1958), cat. no. 195, p. 99, repr. fig 195
  • Vincent van Gogh, The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh (Greenwich, CT, 1958), vol. 3, no. 520
  • Peter H. Feist, "Review of 'Vincent van Gogh: Sämtliche Briefe'", Bildende Kunst (Berlin, 1966), no. 5, pg. 275, repro.
  • Fritz Novotny, Über das "Elementare" in der Kunstgeschichte und andere Aufsätze, Verlag Brüder Rosenbaum (Vienna, 1968), pp. 44, 157, no. 25
  • Dorothy W. Gillerman, ed., Grenville L. Winthrop: Retrospective for a Collector, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, 1969), cat. no. 125, repr.
  • Jacob Baart de la Faille, The Works of Vincent Van Gogh, His Paintings and Drawings, Reynal (New York, NY, 1970)
  • Paolo Lecaldano, L'Opera pittorica completa di Van Gogh, Rizzoli (Milan, Italy, 1971), pg. 211, no. 543A, repro.
  • Meyer Schapiro, Vincent (New York, 1972), pg. 98
  • 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. 161, pl. 31
  • Evert van Uitert, Vincent van Gogh: Zeichnungen, DuMont (Cologne, 1977), p. 71
  • Evert van Uitert, Van Gogh Drawings, Overlook Press (Woodstock, NY, 1978), no. 71, repro.
  • Bernard Chaet, An Artist's Notebook: Techniques and Materials, Holt, Rinehart & Winston (New York, NY, 1979), repr. fig. 39
  • Jan Hulsker, The Complete van Gogh: Paintings, Drawings, Sketches (New York, NY, 1980), pp. 349-50, no. 1549, repro.
  • Caroline A. Jones, Modern Art at Harvard: The Formation of the Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums (New York, NY and Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Art Museums and Abbeville Press, 1985). With an essay by John Coolidge and a preface by John M. Rosenfield. To accompany the inaugural exhibition at the Sackler Museum, Oct 21 1985 - Jan 5 1986, fig. 42
  • Bruce Bernard, ed., Vincent by Himself: A Selection of van Gogh's Paintings and Drawings together with Extracts from his Letters, Little, Brown & Company (Boston, MA, 1985), color repr. p. 238
  • Kristin A. Mortimer and William G. Klingelhofer, Harvard University Art Museums: A Guide to the Collections, Harvard University Art Museums and Abbeville Press (Cambridge and New York, 1986), no. 297, p. 254, repr.
  • Johannes van der Wolk, The Seven Sketchbooks of Vincent Van Gogh, Thames & Hudson (London, England, 1987), repr. fig. 302
  • Johannes van der Wolk and Ronald Pickvance, Vincent van Gogh: Drawings, exh. cat., Arnoldo Mondadori Arte (Milan, 1990), pp. 233, 235-36, fig. 42
  • Vincent van Gogh: Painter, Printmaker, Collector, exh. cat., Norton Simon Museum (Pasadena, CA, 1990), repr. fig. 15
  • Nicholas Wadley, Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Drawing, Dutton Studio Books, New York (New York, NY, 1991), pg. 272, pl. 95
  • Elizabeth Nicoline Heenk, "Vincent Van Gogh's Drawings: An Analysis of their Production and Uses" (Thesis, Courtauld Institute, University of London, 1995), Unpublished, pp. 176-78
  • James Cuno, Alvin L. Clark, Jr., Ivan Gaskell, and William W. Robinson, Harvard's Art Museums: 100 Years of Collecting, ed. James Cuno, Harvard University Art Museums and Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (Cambridge, MA, 1996), p. 236, ill. p. 237
  • Jan Hulsker, The New Complete Van Gogh: Paintings, Drawings, Sketches: Revised and enlarged, J. M. Meulenhoff (Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1996), no. 1549, repr.
  • Masterpieces of world art : Fogg Art Museum, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Busch-Reisinger Museum, 1997
  • Edward Saywell, "Guide to Drawing Terms and Techniques", Harvard University Art Museums Bulletin, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1998), vol. VI, no. 2, pp. 30-39, p. 36 under "Reed pen"
  • Judith W. Simpson, Creating Meaning Through Art: Teacher as Choicemaker, Merrell (Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1998), repr. fig. 2.8
  • Roland Dorn, Van Gogh Face to Face, The Portraits, exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, MI, 2000), fig. 228 (color)
  • Craigen Bowen and Barbara J. Mangum, "The User's Point of View: Micro-Fading Test Results and the Shaping of Exhibition Policy", The Broad Spectrum: Studies in the Materials, Techniques, and Conservation..., ed. Harriet K. Stratis, Archetype Publications (London, England, 2002), pp. 245-255, fig. 5.8, p. 247
  • Vincent Pomarède, "La Collection Winthrop: A la recherche de la beauté pure", L'Estampille/L'Objet d'art (April 2003), no. 379, pp. 34-45, repr. p. 40 (color)
  • Anne Bertrand, "Winthrop: le dessein d'une collection", L'Oeil (March 2003), no. 545, p. 46
  • 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. 47, repr. (color)
  • John A. Walker, Art and Celebrity, Pluto Press (London/Sterling, VA, 2003), fig. 52
  • Christopher Riopelle, Harvard's Winthrop Collection: Nineteenth-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, exh. cat., National Gallery Company Limited (London, 2003), p. 40, cat. 27, ill.
  • 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. 47, repr.
  • Colta Ives and Susan Alyson Stein, Vincent van Gogh: The Drawings, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 2005), pp. 17, 224, fig. 29 (color), fig. 152
  • Stephan Wolohojian and Alvin L. Clark, Jr., Harvard Art Museum/ Handbook, ed. Stephan Wolohojian, Harvard Art Museum (Cambridge, 2008), p. 171, repr.
  • Deanna Petherbridge, The Primacy of Drawing: Histories and Theories of Practice, Yale University Press (U.S.) (New Haven and London, 2010), p. 116, pl. 70
  • Charlotte Eng, "Examination of an Ink Drawing by Vincent van Gogh", Journal of Paper Conservation (2013), vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 19-25, p. 23
  • Louis van Tilborgh, Van Gogh, Phaidon (London, 2015), p. 42, pl. 61
  • Ewa Lajer-Burcharth and Elizabeth M. Rudy, ed., Drawing: The Invention of a Modern Medium, exh. cat., Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, 2017), pp. 91, 93, 282, repr. p. 92 as fig. 4
  • Louis van Tilborgh, Nienke Bakker, Cornelia Homburg, Tsukasa Kodera, and Chris Uhlenbeck, Van Gogh & Japan, exh. cat., Mercatorfonds and Van Gogh Museum (Brussels/Amsterdam, 2018), p. 123
  • Emily Jean Hood and Joe Fusaro, The Visual Experience, 4th Edition, Davis Publications Inc. (Worcester, MA, 2021), p. 285, fig. 8-5, ill. (color)

Exhibition History

  • Van Gogh Teekeningen, Rotterdamsche Kunstkring, Rotterdam, 01/01/1900 - 01/01/1901
  • Vincent van Gogh: Erste grosse Ausstellung seiner Zeichnungen und Aquarelle, Otto Wacker Art Gallery, 01/01/1927 - 01/01/1928
  • 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
  • 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
  • Drawing: The Invention of a Modern Medium, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 01/21/2017 - 05/07/2017

Subjects and Contexts

  • Collection Highlights
  • Google Art Project

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