The Potato Eaters
1885 · Oil on canvas · Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
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About this work
- Artist
- Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890)
- Year
- 1885
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Original size
- 82 × 114 cm
- Collection
- Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
- Movement
- Post-Impressionism
Five peasants sit around a table under a single oil lamp in a dark cottage, sharing a dish of potatoes and pouring coffee, their faces and knuckled hands painted in the colour of a dusty potato. Van Gogh made the picture in Nuenen in April and May 1885 after months of studies of the heads and hands of the De Groot family, and he meant it as his first real painting, a statement that these people had earned their food with the same hands they put in the dish. The dark palette, the coarse handling and the deliberately ugly faces were criticised by his friend Van Rappard, and the two never spoke again. The painting went to his brother Theo in Paris and is in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the summit of his Dutch years.
This print reproduces the whole work, uncropped, from a high-resolution scan of the original. The original is in the public domain.
Where it works
Five peasants around a lamplit table in deep browns, greens and a single yellow flame, for a kitchen, dining room or study at 32×24 in natural wood. Olive, deep brown or warm grey walls suit the gloom; pair it with At Eternity's Gate.
Style, size & framing detail
- Style
- Post-Impressionism painting
- Era
- 19th century (1885)
- Orientation
- Landscape
- Mood
- classic
- Rooms
- kitchen, dining room, study or library, living room
- Good gift for
- housewarming, art lovers
Size. We'd hang this one at 32×24. Prints at 16×12, 24×18, 32×24 in — 16×12 for a shelf, desk or a gallery-wall grid; 24×18 above a console or sideboard; 32×24 as the statement piece above a sofa or headboard.
Framing. The gallery ground is part of the print, so frame it without a mat — natural wood flatters the lighter palette; black sharpens it.
Pairing. Pairs as a set of three with other famous painting prints (10% off three or more).
Details & materials
Shipping & returns
Is this the whole painting, or a crop?
Is The Potato Eaters in the public domain?
What is it printed on?
When was The Potato Eaters painted, and in what medium?
What size works above a sofa or bed?
About this design
The Madten promise
An exhibition poster
The same artwork as a gallery exhibition poster — title, artist & date typeset beneath the image on a soft ground.
