XL in 1885

The Cottage

Then I’m working on a large study of a cottage in the evening.

Letter to Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Friday, 22 May 1885.

After his masterpiece The Potato Eaters, Van Gogh wanted to make more large paintings. The Cottage was one of them. He was so satisfied that he described it as one of his first three large, ambitious paintings, along with The Old Church Tower and The Potato Eaters.

In 1885, Van Gogh lived in his parents’ village of Nuenen, in the Dutch province of North Brabant. He spent a lot of time painting and drawing peasant life in the area. This cottage, with its double front doors and split chimney, actually housed two families. The De Groots, who posed for *The Potato Eaters*, lived in a cottage like this one.