GOGH, Vincent van
(b. 1853, Groot Zundert, d. 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise)

Weaver, Seen from the Front

May 1884, Nuenen
Oil on canvas, 70 x 85 cm
Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo

Catalogue numbers: F 30, JH 479.

In Nuenen between January and August 1884, van Gogh depicted the figure of the weaver working at the loom in several pen drawings, watercolours and oil paintings. In this small village of Northern-Brabant, to where his parents moved in September 1882, more than four hundred people took up weaving, an activity of domestic industry during the winter months, when agricultural labour was suspended.

The chronology of the series could be determined by the development in representing the loom. As time went by, van Gogh depicted the loom with more and more precision, abandoning the anecdotal elements and concentrating on the work process and on the machine itself.