Weaver Facing Left by Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh
1853–1890 | Dutch

Een wever naar links gekeerd
(A Weaver Facing Left)

Pen and black ink on paper

Among the rarest works from Vincent van Gogh’s formative Dutch years, Weaver Facing Left is an exceptionally important drawing executed in February 1884 during the artist’s pivotal Nuenen period. Between January and May of that year, van Gogh produced only nine oil paintings and fewer than twenty drawings and watercolors devoted to weavers and their looms. Of this small and crucial group, this work is the only drawing that remains in private hands, placing it among the rarest survivals from van Gogh’s Dutch oeuvre.

The composition centers on a solitary weaver absorbed into the monumental structure of his loom, rendered through dense crosshatching and emphatic linear rhythms. Van Gogh builds the scene through overlapping verticals and horizontals, allowing the loom’s architectural mass to dominate the space while the human figure emerges almost spectrally at its core. The restrained palette and raw draftsmanship heighten the sense of labor, weight and confinement, underscoring the physical and psychological intensity of the subject.

Van Gogh produced this drawing shortly after moving back to his parents’ home in the village of Nuenen, where he immersed himself in rural life and focused intently on laborers and artisans. Here, he devoted a small but crucial body of work to weavers and their looms, viewing them as symbols of endurance and quiet heroism. He described the loom as an “almighty, beautiful affair,” and wrote vividly of its imposing presence in letters to his brother Theo and to fellow artist Anthon van Rappard, explicitly referencing this drawing as a direct study made on site. These investigations laid the conceptual groundwork for his first major painted masterpiece, The Potato Eaters, completed in 1885.

Almost all works from van Gogh’s weaver series are held by major museums, including the Van Gogh Museum, the Kröller-Müller Museum and the Rijksmuseum, while the oil paintings reside in institutions such as the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Neue Pinakothek, Munich. The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, and the drawing is published in the standard catalogues raisonnés by de la Faille and Hulsker.

Circa 1884

Paper: 3 3/4" high x 5 1/4" wide (9.53 x 13.34 cm)
Framed: 14 3/4" high x 17" wide x 1 3/4" deep (37.47 x 43.18 x 4.45 cm)

View the Dossier

Provenance:
Hidde Nijland, The Hague
Kunstzalen Oldenzeel, Rotterdam
H. P. Bremmer (1871 – 1956), The Hague, after 1915
Thence by descent from above to his son Floris Bremmer (1902 – 1981), The Hague
Private collection, The Netherlands, since circa 1980
M.S. Rau, New Orleans

Literature:
J.- B. de la Faille, L’oeuvre de Vincent van Gogh, catalogue raisonné, Paris/Brussels 1928, p. 68, no. 1124 (as “Le tisserand”)
W. Vanbeselaere, De Hollandsche periode (1880 – 1885) in het werk van Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam and Antwerp, 1937, p. 257, 317 and 411, no. 1124 (illustrated)
G.J.M. van den Brink, W.Th.M. Nijhoff, De wevers van Vincent van Gogh, Zwolle 1990, p. 62 (illustrated)
E. N. Heenk, Vincent van Gogh’s drawings, an analysis of their production and uses, London, 1995, p. 103 and 129
Jan Hulsker, The New Complete Van Gogh, Paintings, Drawings, Sketches, Amsterdam, 1996, p. 108, no. 456 (illustrated)
J.-B. de la Faille, The works of Vincent van Gogh: His paintings and drawings, Amsterdam 1997, no. 1124 (illustrated)
H. Balk, De Kunstpaus. H.P. Bremmer 1871 – 1956, manuscript for a thesis which later was published as a book in 2006, in the 1920-1922 and 1938 valuation lists of the Bremmer collection

Exhibited:
Mönchengladbach, Städtisches Museum Schloss Rheydt, Spinnen und Weben in der Bildenden Kunst, 29. August – 1. November 1982, no. 75 (illus. in catalog)