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Drawn with brown ink on tan paper, fields stretch away from us toward three farm buildings and a man walking behind a plough pulled by a horse in this horizontal landscape. The grass and plants in the field closest to us are suggested by tightly packed clusters of parallel, short, vertical strokes and curlicues. Just beyond it is a gap, suggesting a road, and another field made up of rows of short strokes angled slight to the left or right that recede toward the man and buildings. Two twisted trees, each with a gnarled trunk and spiky branches, stands to our left and right where the more distant fields meet the road, near the sides of the paper. The trees reach high into the blank sky above them. Farther back and to our left, the man and horse are drawn with only a few strokes each, shown facing our right in profile. Beyond them, vertical lines of varying heights, with some intersected by horizontal lines, separate the field from the farmhouses. We see the top level of the three loosely drawn buildings along the horizon line, which comes just under halfway up the composition. The largest is a long rectangular structure just right of center with a few windows scattered across its facade. To the left, beyond the horse and ploughman, is a smaller square structure with a peaked roof. On the far left, the third building has two dots suggesting windows. More thin, vertical strokes appear beyond the buildings, and a low bank of puffy clouds hovers just above the horizon on the right side. Some outlines in graphite are visible under or near the ink lines.

Vincent van Gogh

Ploughman in the Fields near Arles, 1888

Not on View

Medium

reed pen and brown ink over graphite on wove paper

Dimensions

overall: 25.3 x 34.1 cm (9 15/16 x 13 7/16 in.)

Credit Line

Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

Catalogue Raisonné

Faille 1992, no. 1517

Accession Number

1992.51.6

Artists / Makers

Vincent van Gogh (artist) Dutch, 1853 - 1890

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Provenance

Mrs. Jo van Gogh-Bonger, Amsterdam; sold 1912 to (Artz & De Bois); 1918 to (J.H. de Bois Gallery, Haarlem); on consignment 1918 with (Kunsthandel W. Walrecht, The Hague). H. Wiegersma, Deurne, by 1933; (sale, London, Sotheby's, 25 November 1959, no. 80); Bryan L. Hunter, London; (sale, London, Sotheby's, 23 November 1960, no. 23); Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Upperville, VA; gift to NGA, 1992.

Associated Names

Gogh-Bonger, Johanna van, Mme
Hunter, Bryan L.
Kunsthandel Walrecht
Mellon, Paul
Sotheby's
Sotheby's
Wiegersma, Hendrik
de Bois, J. H.

Exhibition History

1914: Vincent van Gogh: Teekeningen uit de verzameling mevr. Jo van Gogh-Bonger en Vincent Willem van Gogh, Stedlijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1914-15, no. 146.146

1957: Vincent van Gogh Leben und Schaffen, Dokumentation, Gemälde, Zeichnungen, Villa Hügel, Essen, 1957, no. 270.

1960: Vincent van Gogh, Musée Jacquemert-André, Paris, 1960, no. 105.

1966: French Paintings from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon and Mrs. Mellon Bruce, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1966, no. 240.

Bibliography

1970: Faille, Jacob Baart de la. The Works of Vincent van Gogh, His Paintings and Drawings. Revised ed. Amsterdam, 1970: no. 1517.

1980: Hulsker, Jan. The Complete Van Gogh: Paintings, drawings, sketches. New York, 1980: 309, no. 1374.

1992: Faille, Jacob Baart de la. Vincent van Gogh: The Complete Works on Paper. San Francisco, 1992: no. 1517.

1993: Heijbroek, Jan Frederik. Kunst, kennis en commercie: de kunsthandelaar J.H. de Bois (1878-1946). Amsterdam, 1993: 206.

2000: Silverman, Debora. Van Gogh and Gauguin: the Search for Sacred Art. New York, 2000: 66, fig. 29.