File:Vincent van Gogh - The Sower (Facing Right) - F858 JH18.jpg
Vincent van Gogh - The Sower (Facing Right) - F858 JH18.jpg
Vincent van Gogh: The Sower:Facing Right    Artist artist QS:P170,Q5582 Title English: The Sower:Facing Right Object type drawing  Date 1881 (autumn) Medium charcoal, chalk and wash on paper Dimensions height: 58 cm (22.8 in); width: 31 cm (12.2 in) dimensions QS:P2048,58U174728 dimensions QS:P2049,31U174728 Collection Private collection institution QS:P195,Q768717 Object history Dr H.P. Bremmer, The Hague. F. Bremmer, The Hague. E.J. van Wisselingh & Co., Amsterdam. F.A.C. Guépin, London 2014 Sale (Christies) 4 February 2014: £722,500 Exhibition history Memphis, Dixon Gallery and Gardens, The Genius of Van Gogh, May - June 1982, no. 1 (illustrated p. 13). Inscriptions Signed in lower right: Vincent Notes Catalogues raisonnés: F858: Faille, Jacob Baart de la (1970) [1928] The Works of Vincent van Gogh. His Paintings and Drawings, Amsterdam: J.M. Meulenhoff, no. 858 . JH17 : Jan Hulsker (1980), The Complete Van Gogh, Oxford: Phaidon, no.  17. The model here may well have been Piet Kaufmann, a labourer whom Vincent called his gardener in his letters (c.f. F851). Vincent made several rather awkward studies from life of sowers at this time, as well as copies after Millet such as F830. Anthon Van Rappard evidently criticised one of these as a study of a man posing as a sower rather than a man who is a sower, a criticism Vincent acknowledged in letter 176. Hulsker observes that Vincent did nevertheless sometimes succeed in making astonishingly successful works at this time, such as Peasant Sitting by the Fireplace (F863) mentioned in letter 172 (Hulsker p. 20). Letter 172 to Theo van Gogh. Etten, mid-September 1881. Vincent van Gogh: The Letters. Van Gogh Museum. "The careful study, the constant and repeated drawing of Bargue’s Exercices au fusain has given me more insight into figure drawing. I’ve learned to measure and to see and to attempt the broad outlines &c. So that what used to seem to me to be desperately impossible is now gradually becoming possible, thank God. I’ve drawn a peasant with a spade no fewer than 5 times, ‘a digger’ in fact, in all kinds of poses, twice a sower, twice a girl with a broom. Also a woman with a white cap who’s peeling potatoes, and a shepherd leaning on his crook, and finally an old, sick peasant sitting on a chair by the fireplace with his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees [F863]. And it won’t stop there, of course, once a couple of sheep have crossed the bridge the whole flock follows. Diggers, sowers, ploughers, men and women I must now draw constantly. Examine and draw everything that’s part of a peasant’s life. Just as many others have done and are doing. I’m no longer so powerless in the face of nature as I used to be." Letter 176 to Anthon van Rappard. Etten, Saturday, 15 October 1881. Vincent van Gogh: The Letters. Van Gogh Museum. "Your comment on that figure of the sower — of which you said, it’s not a man sowing but a man posing as a sower — is very true. I consider my current studies, however, to be studies from a model, they have no pretension of being anything else. Only in a year or two will I get down to making a sower who is sowing, I agree with you there." References ; Naifeh, Steven; Smith, Gregory White (2011) Van Gogh: The Life, Profile Books ISBN: 978-1846680106. Source/Photographer Christie's, LotFinder: entry 5766355 (sale 1505, lot 3) Permission (Reusing this file)