Peasant Woman Digging Up Potatoes

Van Gogh painted peasant women digging potatoes during his Nuenen period in 1885, as part of his sustained effort to depict agricultural labor with the same seriousness and dignity he admired in the works of Millet and Daumier. The potato harvest was central to Brabant rural life, and Van Gogh returned to it repeatedly as he prepared for The Potato Eaters — his first major statement as an artist. This Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp canvas shows the figure mid-labor, bent over the earth in a composition that emphasizes physical effort and rootedness in the soil.

Van Gogh works in the dark, earthy palette of his Dutch period — deep browns, umbers, and murky greens — applying paint with vigorous, directional strokes that convey both the physical texture of the soil and the effort of the labor.