Plaster Cast of a Woman's Torso
Vincent van Gogh (1853 - 1890), Paris, February-March 1887
oil on canvas, 40.8 cm x 27.1 cm
Credits (obliged to state): Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
The more you zoom in, the better you can see that Van Gogh used a large network of thin brushstrokes to suggest the forms of the human body. It's almost as if he were drawing in thin paint. You can also see the contrasting colours: green, orange-red and purple. But if you look from a distance (or through your eyelashes), all those colours melt into a warm grey.
Van Gogh based the female torso in this painting on one of his favourite plaster casts: a small copy of a classical sculpture of Venus.
- F-number
- F0216g
- JH-number
- JH1055
- Object number
- s0199V1962
- Dimensions
- 40.8 cm x 27.1 cm, 49.1 cm x 35.5 cm, 6.5 cm
- Provenance
- Left by the artist at the apartment of his brother Theo van Gogh, Paris, February-March 1887; after his death on 25 January 1891, inherited by his widow, Jo van Gogh-Bonger, and their son, Vincent Willem van Gogh, Paris; administered until her death on 2 September 1925 by Jo van Gogh-Bonger, Bussum/Amsterdam/Laren; transferred by Vincent Willem van Gogh, Laren to the Vincent van Gogh Foundation, Amsterdam, 10 July 1962; agreement concluded between the Vincent van Gogh Foundation and the State of the Netherlands, in which the preservation and management of the collection, and its placing in the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, to be realized in Amsterdam, is entrusted to the State, 21 July 1962; given on loan until the opening of the museum on 2 June 1973 to the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; on permanent loan to the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh from 2 June 1973 and at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, since 1 July 1994.
- artist
- Vincent van Gogh
- Credits (obliged to state)
- Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
London, Tate Britain, The EY Exhibition: Van Gogh and Britain, 27 March-11 August 2019
Hiroshima, Hiroshima Prefectural Museum of Art, Van Gogh in Paris. New perspectives, 15 July-23 September 2013
Sendai, Miyagi Museum of Art, Van Gogh in Paris. New perspectives, 26 May-8 July 2013
Kyoto, Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, Van Gogh in Paris. New perspectives, 30 March-19 May 2013
Seoul, Seoul Arts Center, Van Gogh in Paris. A dialogue with modernism, 4 November 2012-24 March 2013
Nagasaki, Huis ten Bosch (Japan), Van Gogh in Paris: New perspectives, 29 July-28 October 2012
Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, Van Gogh in Antwerpen en Parijs: nieuwe inzichten, 22 June-18 September 2011
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Van Gogh te gast in het Rijksmuseum. Meesterwerken van het Van Gogh Museum, 19 September 1998-2 May 1999
Paris, Musée d'Orsay, Van Gogh à Paris, 2 February-15 May 1988, no. 17
Gothenburg, Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Vincent van Gogh. Målningar, akvareller, teckningar, 30 December 1965-20 February 1966, no. 15
The Hague, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, Vincent van Gogh. Collectie ir. V.W. van Gogh, 12 October 1948-10 January 1949, no. 47
Kendall, Richard, 'I kept on thinking about Degas': Vincent van Gogh and the 'little lawyer', p. 31-33
