Certainly one of Van Gogh’s most interesting early watercolours is developing on the market, estimated at as much as £3m

Though not but introduced, Christie’s will provide Van Gogh’s Girl Stitching (October-November 1881) in a London sale on 7 March. The estimate is £2m-£3m, a modest sum for his work, however reflecting the truth that it was painted when he was simply getting down to grow to be an artist.

The big watercolour and gouache portray, 60cm excessive, depicts a middle-aged lady stitching by the sunshine of a window. She works on a white shirt, which seems to be moderately good, somewhat than an atypical farmer’s garment. It’d even be considered one of Van Gogh’s personal shirts, which he lent to an area mannequin to make use of.

On 15 October 1881 Van Gogh wrote to his artist good friend Anthon van Rappard, asking whether or not he may get a replica of “The Tune of the Shirt”, a poem by the English author Thomas Hood: “I’d wish to ask you to put in writing it down for me.” Van Rappard was then about to go to Van Gogh.

A couple of days later Van Rappard made the 100-kilometre journey from Utrecht to Etten, the village within the south of the Netherlands the place Van Gogh was residing together with his mother and father. The 2 males spent a couple of days collectively, after they mentioned the strategy of watercolour. Later that autumn Van Gogh carried on honing his expertise as a watercolourist.

Girl Stitching was at the very least partly impressed by “The Tune of the Shirt”. In his poem Hood wrote a couple of toiling seamstress: “With fingers weary and worn/With eyelids heavy and crimson/A lady sat in unwomanly rags/ Plying her needle and thread… She sang the ‘Tune of the Shirt’.” Van Gogh had in all probability learn the poem when he was residing in England in 1873-76 and he’s more likely to have identified the illustrated version of Hood’s poetry with photographs by Gustave Doré.

Van Gogh’s mannequin in Girl Stitching may have been sitting in her own residence or in his makeshift studio, which was an outhouse of the parsonage the place his household lived. She has one foot raised on a small stool, scissors and a big spool of thread on the bottom.

Though the lady stays unidentified, Etten historian Cor Kerstens believes it’s most definitely that she was Dien de Graaf, a seamstress and hat maker who lived within the village, in Oude Bredaseweg. Van Gogh knew her effectively, since her husband Alexander was the sexton of the native Protestant church, the place Vincent’s father was the pastor. Dien would have been 42 when the watercolour was painted.

The view from the window is intriguing, depicting a home, which seems to be a middle-class residence. The constructing might not have been one truly seen from the window, but when not it may effectively have been primarily based on a sketch of a home elsewhere within the village. The scene definitely represents winter, because the sole tree is naked.

Van Gogh painted 5 different watercolours of girls stitching. By this time he was utilizing native fashions, paying them round 25 cents a day. On 12 October he had written to Van Rappard, simply earlier than the go to of his good friend: “It’s additionally stunning right here within the winter, and we absolutely may do one thing, if not open air then working from a mannequin in the home of some peasant or different. I’ve been drawing lots from the mannequin recently.”

Though the early provenance of the Girl Stitching watercolour developing on the market just isn’t solely clear, it could have been with a Rotterdam vendor in 1904. It may earlier have been amongst 40 Van Gogh work and quite a few works on paper which had been deserted and later all offered as waste for a complete of 1 guilder (then round US 50 cents).

By 1937 Girl Stitching belonged the Dutch musicologist Anthony van Hoboken. He additionally owned plenty of vital Van Gogh oil work. In 1951 the watercolour was purchased by the Swiss biochemist Arthur Stoll and his spouse Martha. It was later auctioned in Bern in 2008, when it fetched the equal of £1.4m and went to the present proprietor, a European.

There’ll quickly be an opportunity to see it in London for a couple of days earlier than the 7 March Christie’s sale.