A Dutch tree in Provence

The record dates Pollard Willows and Setting Sun to 1888. Pollard willows are named in five titles in this catalogue: one dated 1884, in the Nuenen years, and four dated 1888. no titles dated 1885, 1886 or 1887 carry the word, so the return lands in the Arles year after a clean gap.

What the record gives

The panel measures 31.5 by 34.5 centimetres, and of the 333 works here with a recorded size only twenty-one are smaller. It is held by the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo. The measured palette reads as ochre and yellow.

Small formats in a year of large ones

1888 is the catalogue's biggest year at 135 works, and eighty-nine of them carry a recorded size — so the year is well documented as well as well represented. Against that, a panel this small is atypical for its date; most of the recorded sizes from 1888 sit near the standard canvas formats. The record supports the comparison because the sizes are all in the same column. What it does not support is any statement about how the small panels were used, and none is made here.