Woman Winding Yarn

Woman Winding Yarn (1885), at the Van Gogh Museum, depicts a peasant woman engaged in a specific domestic textile task—the winding of spun yarn onto a reel or bobbin. Van Gogh was deeply interested in the variety of craft labour performed by the women of Nuenen and the surrounding area, and he made numerous studies of women at work: weaving, sewing, spinning. These labour studies were preparation for larger ambitions—he wanted to build a comprehensive visual record of peasant work as Millet had done in France—while functioning as complete works in their own right, capturing the absorbed concentration of skilled labour.

The figure's pose is shaped by the specific requirements of yarn winding—the arms extended to hold the yarn taut, the hands performing precise movements. Van Gogh renders the figure in the sombre dark tones of his Nuenen interiors, with the face and hands—the expressive centres—receiving particular attention. The background is handled broadly to concentrate attention on the figure and her activity.