The record dates Sower to 1888, and the measured palette reads as brown and yellow. Brown is by then close to gone: three of the 135 works dated 1888 return it, against thirty-one of the seventy dated 1885. This is one of the three.
The canvas measures 73.5 by 92 centimetres and is held by the E.G. Bührle Foundation in Zürich, which holds six works in this catalogue, dated between 1884 and 1890. The subject is named in five titles here, four of them dated 1888 and one dated 1889.
A sower is a Brabant subject that the catalogue records only in Provence — the word does not appear in any title before 1888, although peasants do, in twenty-four titles dated 1885 alone. The interest of an entry like this one is that subject and measurement point in different directions: the motif reads as a return to the Dutch years, and the palette measurement is one of the last of its kind. A catalogue ordered by date lets both facts stand without having to reconcile them, which is as far as the record goes.
Vincent Willem van Gogh (Dutch: [ˈvɪnsɛnt ˈʋɪləɱ vɑŋ ˈɣɔx] ; 30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade he c
Dutch art dealer, 1866-1911
High-resolution image of the work, hosted on Wikimedia Commons.
Louie Drehmer, Curator, Vincent van Gogh Paintings
Louie curates Vincent van Gogh Paintings, cross-referencing every entry against museum records, Wikidata, the Getty Union List of Artist Names, and Wikipedia.
Sower is an oil painting by Vincent van Gogh, 1888, held at E.G. Bührle Foundation, Zürich, Switzerland.
Support Vincent van Gogh Paintings
Purchases fund this free archive.
