Weaver

Weaving was an old home trade in Nuenen, the Brabant village where Van Gogh's parents lived, and it paid so badly that the weavers were among the poorest families in the district. In May 1884 Van Rappard spent about ten days there, and the two friends went out to the cottages to work. The rooms made that hard. A hand loom took up most of the floor, the light came from one small window, and a painter had nowhere to step back to. Van Gogh sometimes drew from the passageway. On 28 May he reported to his brother Theo what his guest had managed: Rappard has made a small weaver here, which I thought very good, and a bust of a girl winding yarn. That small weaver is almost certainly this panel, roughly 26 by 35 centimetres, one of a long run of studies he made of people who worked with their hands.