Cottage with Peasant Woman Digging

Born in the Netherlands, Van Gogh studied the basic of drawing in Brussels. In 1881, at the age of 28, he moved to Etten in the south of the Netherlands, where his father was posted as a pastor. At the end of that year, due to the conflict with his father who was dead against his wish to become a painter, Van Gogh moved to The Hague, where he met the painters of the Hague school. Influenced by the works by the painters of the Hague school and the 17th-century Dutch masters, the works created by Van Gogh during his Dutch period were painted entirely in muted, dark tones.
In 1883, at the age of 30, Van Gogh left The Hague for Nuenen in the southern Netherlands, where his father had been assigned to. Around this time, he seriously began to devote himself to oil painting, and energetically portrayed peasants and artisans, and also landscapes around Nuenen.
His Nuenen period was an essential time for Van Gogh to establish himself as a peasant painter. During this time, Van Gogh painted The Potato Eaters (1885), which can be regarded as a culmination of his Dutch period. This work Cottage with Peasant Woman Digging was painted in June 1885, one month after the production of The Potato Eaters.
In a letter to his brother Theo, Van Gogh wrote: “Right now I need all my time, because I am working a full two hours from here (Nuenen). What I want is to have some more beautiful hovels far away on the heath. I have four now, as large as the two I last sent you, and a few smaller ones.” This work is one of the “few smaller ones” referred to in the letter.
For Gogh, who admired Millet, a scene of peasant life was an essential motif to represent the harshness of their lifestyle and their deep connection with nature. Van Gogh affectionately likened peasants’ houses to the nests of the winter wren, a tiny wild bird smaller than a sparrow, dubbing their houses “people’s nests.” With his strong touches and muted tones, he captured the hardiness of peasants whose lives are rooted in the land and the generosity of nature.
Van Gogh painted a number of the works with a similar motif as this one during the same period, which indicates how important this motif was to him.