A Pair of Leather Clogs

A Pair of Leather Clogs belongs to a small group of still-life paintings Van Gogh made at Saint-Rémy in 1889. Clogs — wooden or leather sabots — were the footwear of the working poor in northern France and the Netherlands, associated throughout Van Gogh's career with the peasants he had drawn and painted since the early 1880s. His 1885 Still Life with Wooden Clogs had established this object as significant within his personal iconography. In the asylum environment, returning to this humble subject connected him to his earlier artistic concerns and to the social world of labour and poverty that had first animated his vocation as a painter.

The two clogs are arranged simply — not artfully posed but placed as they might actually be left, retaining the imprint of use and wear. Van Gogh renders the leather's surface with attention to its texture and the way light catches worn patches, treating the humble objects with the same seriousness he would give a portrait.