The portrait ‘Gordina de Groot’, from the Nuenen period by Vincent van Gogh, has returned to Brabant. The painting is temporarily hanging in the Noordbrabants Museum in Den Bosch. “It’s nice to have her back home”.
De Groot was the model for the work ‘Kop van een vrouw’ (‘head of a woman’) by the famous painter. After eighty years, the canvas can now be seen by the general public again. The work was privately owned for a long time. In 2023 it was transferred from a banker from The Hague to a British art collector. The new owner is now temporarily loaning it to the Den Bosch museum.
Luck
Curator Helewise Berger cannot believe her luck now that the masterpiece from Van Gogh’s Brabant period is in the museum. “It is an incredibly special painting and we are proud to be able to show it here. It also belongs on Brabant soil”.
In the painting you see the Nuenen woman Gordina de Groot. According to Berger, her expression is especially impressive. “Gordina was a farmer’s daughter and you clearly see how hard life on the land was.”
Gordina was often a model for Van Gogh. “For example, you can also see her in Van Gogh’s masterpiece ‘De aardappeleters’ (the potato eaters). He called her Sien. We know her name because Van Gogh mentioned her in a letter from Paris. Near Nuenen she was also called Dien“.
Farmer faces
In the winter of 1884-1885, Van Gogh painted a whole series of studies of farmers’ faces in Nuenen. At the time, the Brabant peasant women wore white hats. These fascinated the painter because of the contrast with the faces that remained partly in the shadows. “Those female heads you see here with the white hats – it is difficult – but it is so eternally beautiful –,” Van Gogh wrote.
Outbid
The Noordbrabants Museum actually wanted to buy the painting, but was quickly outbid last year. “We thought that was a shame and we took our courage and went to the owner in London”.
“We asked if the canvas could be taken to Brabant and he agreed”, Berger proudly says. “He bought it for £5.500,000, but we can now borrow it from him for six months. We are extremely grateful to him for that”.
This opinion is shared by Anne-Marie, volunteer at the Noordbrabants Museum. While she is showing a group around, she cannot believe her luck. “It’s great that we now have Gordina in the museum. Nice to have her back home!”
“This is really one of Van Gogh’s works where you actually see him yourself, reflected by this woman”, Anne-Marie explains. “Truly a woman of flesh and blood. It still gives me a bit of goosebumps. Wonderful!”
For more information: Het Noordbrabants Museum
Source: Studio040
Translated by: Bob
