Peasant Woman Seated Before an Open Door, Peeling Potatoes

Peasant Woman Seated Before an Open Door, Peeling Potatoes (1885) combines one of Van Gogh's most significant symbolic subjects — the potato — with one of his most characteristic observations of domestic labour. The figure sits in a liminal space — a doorway that is simultaneously interior and exterior — and the potato-peeling action is one of the most ordinary and most overlooked of domestic preparations. He was fascinated by the specificity of domestic labour: not generalised 'woman at work' but woman peeling potatoes, woman at this precise task in this precise location, with the door frame creating a compositional boundary between the dark interior and the light beyond. The combination of the potato subject with the specific posture and setting of peeling made this a highly characteristic Nuenen work. Current location unknown.

The composition places the figure at the door threshold, interior and exterior light meeting in a transitional zone. Van Gogh's dark palette renders the specific quality of this combined light — the outdoor illumination modifying the cottage interior's characteristic darkness. The act of peeling potatoes is captured through precise observation of posture and hand position.