Detail of Women Picking Olives by Van Gogh in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, December 2008

Artist: Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890)

Title: Women Picking Olives

Artist: Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, Zundert 1853–1890 Auvers-sur-Oise)

Date: 1889

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 28 5/8 x 36 in. (72.7 x 91.4 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: The Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg Collection, Gift of Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg, 1995, Bequest of Walter H. Annenberg, 2002

Accession Number: 1995.535


At the end of 1889, Van Gogh painted three versions of this picture. He described the first as a study from nature "more colored with more solemn tones" (private collection) and the second as a studio rendition in a "very discreet range" of colors (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). The present work, the most resolved and stylized of the three, was intended for his sister and mother, to whom Van Gogh wrote: "I hope that the painting of the women in the olive trees will be a little to your taste—I sent [a] drawing of it to Gauguin, . . . and he thought it good. . . ."


Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436536