Vincent van Gogh: The Fish Drying Barn at Scheveningen
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| Artist |
Vincent van Gogh
(1853–1890)    |
 |
| Alternative names |
Vincent Willem van Gogh |
| Description |
Dutch painter, drawer and printmaker |
| Date of birth/death |
30 March 1853  |
29 July 1890 |
| Location of birth/death |
Zundert |
Auvers-sur-Oise |
| Work period |
between circa 1880 and circa July 1890 date QS:P,+1850-00-00T00:00:00Z/7,P1319,+1880-00-00T00:00:00Z/9,P1326,+1890-07-00T00:00:00Z/10,P1480,Q5727902 |
| Work location |
Netherlands ( Etten, The Hague, Nuenen, …, before 1886 date QS:P,+1886-00-00T00:00:00Z/7,P1326,+1886-00-00T00:00:00Z/9 ), Paris (1886–1887), Arles (1888–1889), Saint-Rémy-de-Provence (1889–1890), Auvers-sur-Oise (1890) |
| Authority file |
|
artist QS:P170,Q5582 |
|
| Title |
French: La droguerie de limandes, Scheveningen The Fish Drying Barn at Scheveningen title QS:P1476,fr:"La droguerie de limandes, Scheveningen"
label QS:Lfr,"La droguerie de limandes, Scheveningen"
label QS:Len,"The Fish Drying Barn at Scheveningen" |
| Object type |
watercolor painting |
| Date |
July 1882 date QS:P571,+1882-07-00T00:00:00Z/10 |
| Medium |
watercolor and pen on paper mounted on cardboard [Opaque and transparent watercolor, graphite, pen and ink on wove paper pasted on cardboard (Sotheby's)] |
| Dimensions |
height: 36.2 cm (14.2 in); width: 52.1 cm (20.5 in) dimensions QS:P2048,36.2U174728 dimensions QS:P2049,52.1U174728 |
| Collection |
Private collection institution QS:P195,Q768717 |
| Object history |
- Dr. H.P. Bremmer, The Hague [per Sotheby's sale catalogue and following]
- Floris Bremmer, The Hague (by descent from the above)
- E.J. van Wisselingh & Co., Amsterdam
- Myrtil Frank, The Hague & New York
- E.V. Thaw and Co., New York
- Benjamin Edward Bensinger, Chicago (by 1969)
- Private Collection, Tokyo (by 1975 until at least 1986)
- Private Collection, United States
- James Goodman Gallery, New York (acquired in 2001)
- Acquired from the above
- Sale Sotheby's, New York, 4 November 2014: Passed
|
| Exhibition history |
- Amsterdam, Kunsthandel Huinck en Scherjon, Scheilderijen door Vincent van Gogh, J.B. Jonkind, Floris Vester, 1932, no. 2 [per Sotheby's sale catalogue and following]
- The Hague, Gemeentemuseum, Verzameling H.P. Bremmer, 1950, no. 43
- Antwerp, Zaal Comité voor Artistieke Werking, Vincent van Gogh en zijn Hollandse tijgenoten, no. 10
- Amsterdam, E.J. van Wisselingh & Co., Vincent van Gogh, quelques oeuvres de l’époche 1881-1886, provenant de collections particulières nérlandaises, 1956, no. 4
- Essen, Villa Hügel, Vincent van Gogh, Leben und Schaffen, Dokumentation, Gemälde, Zeichnungen, 1957, no. 138
- Paris, Musée Jacquemart André, Van Gogh, 1960, no. 83
- Amsterdam, E.J. van Wisselingh & Co., Vincent van Gogh, quelques oeuvres de l'époque 1881-1886, provenant de collections particulières néerlandaises, 1961, no. 13
- Munich, Städische Galerie, Vincent van Gogh, Zeichnungen und Aquarelle, 1961, no. 21
- Chicago, The Art Institute, Private Collections in Chicago, 1969
- Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art; Nagoya, City Museum, Vincent van Gogh, 1985-86, no. 38
- New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Vincent van Gogh: The Drawings, 2005, no. 10, illustrated in color p. 78
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| Notes |
- Catalogues raisonnés:
- F945: Faille, Jacob Baart de la (1970) [1928] The Works of Vincent van Gogh. His Paintings and Drawings, Amsterdam: J.M. Meulenhoff, no. 945 .
- JH620 : Jan Hulsker (1980), The Complete Van Gogh, Oxford: Phaidon, no. 620.
- Scheveningen is the fishing village close by The Hague where Vincent established his first studio at the beginning of 1882. Vincent's mentor Anton Mauve executed several of his best canvases at Scheveningen (e.g. Fishing Boat on the Beach and Morning Ride along the Beach), while Jozef Israëls, another Hague School painter revered by Vincent, maintained a summer house there. Israëls' guests included Max Liebermann, who painted several studies of the village and beach life (e.g. Street in Scheveningen). Vincent had already made some figure studies, such as Scheveningen Woman Sewing, on a previous visit to Mauve, making his first attempt at watercolor, and now turned to sketching en plein air with the aid of his perspective frame. One of his very earliest oil paintings, Scheveningen Beach in Stormy Weather, was executed at Scheveningen, but is unfortunately presently lost following its theft from the Vincent van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in 2003 (added June 2017: now happily recovered!).
- Before this July 1882 watercolor, Vincent had already sketched the fish drying barns as part of a commission for his Uncle Cor, drawings such as Carpenter's Yard and Laundry (in this latter case made from his studio window). In June 1882, however, Vincent's work was interrupted both by illness (he needed hospital treatment for gonorrhea) and by his partner Sien Hoornink's difficult confinement (a son almost certainly not by Vincent, though a claim has been made). The following month he returned to work with a will, producing a number of watercolors admired by Hulsker including this one. Hulsker identifies other watercolors executed in this month as Bleaching Ground F946, Rooftops F943, and Pollard Willow F947 (Hulsker pp. 52-4). Nevertheless, despite the advice of his influential Goupil patron Hermanus Tersteeg, Vincent abandoned watercolor in favour of drawing, at this time seeing himself as primarily a graphic artist (Naifeh and Smith, pp 259-61). The transition to painting in oils was to occur over the following year, with early experiments at Scheveningen and in woods near his studio (such as Two Women in a Wood).
- Letters
- Letter 234 to Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Thursday, 1 and Friday, 2 June 1882. Vincent van Gogh: The Letters. Van Gogh Museum. "Have you received the Fish-drying barn drawing? I’m working on a couple more to add to it, so that you’ll have 3 or so done in the same manner. C.M. [Uncle Cor] also has some in this manner, but haven’t heard from him yet."
- Letter 249 to Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Friday, 21 July 1882. Vincent van Gogh: The Letters. Van Gogh Museum. "People like me aren’t really allowed to be ill. You must really understand how I regard art. One must work long and hard to arrive at the truthful. What I want and set as my goal is damned difficult, and yet I don’t believe I’m aiming too high. I want to make drawings that move some people. Sorrow is a small beginning — perhaps small landscapes like the Laan van Meerdervoort [now lost], the Rijswijk meadows and the Fish-drying barn are also small beginnings. At least they contain something straight from my own feelings."
- Letter 251 to Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Wednesday, 26 July 1882. Vincent van Gogh: The Letters. Van Gogh Museum. "I now have 3 of Scheveningen1 — again the Fish-drying barn you know — drawn in as much detail — only now there’s colour as well. As you well know, Theo, it isn’t harder to work in colour than in black and white, the opposite perhaps, but as far as I can see 3/4 comes down to the original sketch, and almost the whole watercolour depends on its quality. It isn’t enough to give an approximation, and my aim has been and still is to make it more intense. I believe that’s already evident in the black-and-white fish-drying barns, because there you can follow everything and see how it all fits together, and look, I think this is why I now work much more fluently in watercolour, because for such a long time I did my best to draw more correctly.Tersteeg said that what I was doing was a waste of time; soon you’ll see that I’ve saved a great deal of time.... So I don’t count it a misfortune if I find myself out of favour with HGT [Tersteeg] or anyone else, however much I regret it. That can’t be the direct cause of unhappiness — if I felt no love for nature and my work, then I would be unhappy. But the less I get on with people the more I learn to trust nature and to concentrate on it. All these things make me fresher and fresher inside — you’ll also see that I’m not afraid of a fresh green or a soft blue and the thousand different greys, for there’s hardly any colour that isn’t a grey: red-grey, yellow-grey, green-grey, blue-grey. This is what all colour mixing comes down to. When I went back to the Fish-drying barn, a luxuriant and indescribably fresh green from a wild vegetable or oilseed had shot up in the baskets filled with sand in the foreground that serve to stop the sand of the dunes blowing about. Two months ago it was all barren except for a bit of grass in the small garden, and now that rough, wild, luxuriantly sprouting green produced a most pleasant effect as a contrast to the bareness of the rest. I hope you’ll like that drawing. The vista — the view over the roofs of the village with the small church tower and the dunes — was so attractive. I can’t tell you with how much pleasure I drew it."
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| References |
- Naifeh, Steven and Smith, Gregory White. Van Gogh: the Life, New York: Random House, 2011. ISBN 978-0-375-50748-9
- Jacob-Baart de la Faille, L"oevre de Vincent van Gogh, Catalogue Raisonné, Paris & Brussels, 1928, no. 945 [per Sotheby's sale catalogue and following]
- W.F. Douwes, Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam, 1930, p. 71
- Walther Vanbeselaere, De Hollandsche periode (1880-1885) in het werk van Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam, 1937, discussed pp. 84, 143, 145, 148 and 408
- The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh, vol. I, Greenwich, Connecticut, 1959, discussed pp. 421-23
- Jacob-Baart de la Faille, The Works of Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam, 1970, no. F945, illustrated p. 352
- W.J.A. Visser, Vincent van Gogh en ’s-Gravenhage, Geschiedkundige Vereniging Die Haghe. Jaarboek 1973, The Hague 1973, p. 95
- Jan Hulsker, The Complete Van Gogh, Paintings, Drawings and Sketches, New York, 1980, no. 160, illustrated p. 44
- Michel van der Mast and Charles Dumas, Van Gogh en Den Haag, Zwolle, 1990, pp. 64 & 66
- Jacob-Baart de la Faille, Vincent van Gogh, The Complete Works on Paper, Catalogue Raisonné, vol. I, San Francisco, 1992, no. 945, catalogued p. 29; vol. II, no. 945, illustrated XXIX
- Liesbeth Heenk, Vincent van Gogh's Drawings: An analysis of their production and uses, London, 1995, pp. 63 & 76
- Jan Hulsker, The New Complete Van Gogh, Amsterdam, 1996, no. 160, illustrated p. 44, pp. 64 & 66
- Leo Jansen, Hans Luijtens & Nienke Bakker, eds., Vincent van Gogh, The Letters, The Complete Illustated and Annotated Edition, Volume 2: The Hague, 1881-1883, London, 2009, illustrated in color p. 118
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| Source/Photographer |
Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern Art evening sale, 4 November 2014, New York, lot 56 |
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