The Spinner

Van Gogh's The Spinner, painted at Saint-Rémy in 1889, returns to the subject of women's domestic labor that he had explored since his Nuenen years. The image of a woman at a spinning wheel — traditional labor connecting the present to a pre-industrial past — carried the same symbolic weight for Van Gogh that agricultural labor did: honest, necessary, dignified. At Saint-Rémy, such subjects may also have carried the personal resonance of occupation and purposefulness during periods when his own work was impossible. The work is currently unlocated or in private hands.

The figure at the spinning wheel is rendered with attention to the relationship between the worker and her implement — the posture of spinning, the motion of the wheel. Van Gogh's Saint-Rémy technique animates the composition with characteristic energy while maintaining observational clarity about the specific activity depicted. His palette brings warm color to the domestic interior.