Woman Sitting in a Field: Brittany

Bernard sold this narrow canvas directly to Andries Bonger, a Dutch businessman in Paris who was the brother-in-law of Theo van Gogh. The two men seem to have met in July 1890, at Vincent's funeral in Auvers, and the acquaintance turned into the steadiest patronage Bernard ever had. Bonger came to own 24 of his paintings and drawings and eight of his prints, hanging them beside his Redons, and this Breton figure entered that collection before 1903. It was painted at Pont-Aven around 1890, when the village was full of painters who had come for the costume, the country and the cheap board. The Dutch State bought the picture from Bonger's heirs in December 1996 and placed it in the Van Gogh Museum.