Five Figure Studies (verso) (1600s): Art, History and Details

Five Figure Studies (verso) (1600s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Anonymous.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

In September 1883 Van Gogh left the bustling Dutch city of The Hague in search of open countryside in which to paint. He moved to Drenthe, a village in northeastern Netherlands that was virtually untouched by the Industrial Revolution. He described the barren terrain as supremely beautiful and serene: "What tranquility, what expanse, what calmness in this nature." With a limited palette of steely greens and cool blues, Van Gogh masterfully portrayed one of the region’s expanses of heath—"a vast plane vanishing into infinity"—illuminated by the lilac hues of the evening sky.

Object facts

• Title: Five Figure Studies (verso)
• Date: 1600s
• Creator attribution: Anonymous
• Culture: France
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: graphite
• Dimensions: Sheet: 10.1 x 15.4 cm (4 x 6 1/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - French
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1958.300.b

A detail from the museum

Vincent van Gogh made this watercolor just over a year after beginning to work professionally as an artist.

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Herman Moss

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.