Material Pastel on paper
Dimensions 25.5 × 26.4 cm
Status Vetted

About the Work

Executed in the summer of 1890, this pastel sketch belongs to Van de Velde’s pointillist phase, yet it is closer in spirit to works inspired by Edvard Munch or more particularly Vincent Van Gogh. Indeed, between 1890 and 1893, he produced several pastel studies that marked a decisive shift in his style. While retaining the divisionist principle of juxtaposed colour planes, he moved away from the use of dots, instead constructing forms through short, parallel strokes of colour — a method pastel allowed him to explore most freely. The line thus replaced the dot under the clear influence of Van Gogh, whose some of the paintings were exhibited at the Salon des XX in 1890, shortly before his death. Through these explorations of line in pastel, Henry Van de Velde would later develop the organic forms that came to define European Art Nouveau — particularly the gradual emergence of ornamental character within the figure and the landscape, leading to a new fusion between figure and ground.


Here, the peasant is wholly absorbed in his labour, lost in thought and activity, as in many of the artist’s figure and portrait studies. His focus on rural subjects, drawn in pastel, chalk, or pencil, is typical of his early 1890s production. This work closely relates to similar peasant scenes executed in the Belgian countryside during the summers of 1890-1891, some now in the Royal Library of Belgium and the Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo. It was most likely created in Kalmthout, at the country residence of his sister and brother-in-law, whom he also portrayed at that time. There, he became fascinated by the changing light on the fields, which offered him endless opportunities to study atmospheric effects through the hours and seasons. Like Van Gogh, he regarded the labour of farmers as a form of authentic existence, far removed from the artificiality of modern urban life. The peasant thus became, in his view, an essential subject in the history of art.

Kept in the artist’s own collection until his death, and later passed to his son, this drawing bears a deeply personal and familial provenance. It reflects the intimate dimension of Van de Velde’s early graphic production, created within a domestic setting before his full commitment to the decorative arts and architecture. Yet, as this study and his later reflections attest, drawing would remain for Van de Velde the most essential element all along his career — the foundation of both self-knowledge and artistic fulfilment.

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Provenance

Henry Van de Velde estate, Brussels ; thence by descent to Thyl Van de Velde (the artist’s son) ; Galerie L’Ecuyer, Brussels ; Galerie Ronny Van de Velde, Antwerp ; De Baeck collection, Antwerp ; Ronny and Jessy Van de Velde collection, Antwerp ; Private collection, Belgium.

Literature

Abraham Marie Hammacher, De vereld van Henry Van de Velde, Anvers, 1967, n°73 ; Susan Canning, Henry van de Velde, Schilderijen en tekeningen, Gand, 1987, n° 31, pp. 207 ; Steven Jacobs, Henry van de Velde, Leuven, 1996, n° 6 ; Xavier Tricot (ed.), Henry van de Velde, dessins et pastels (1884 – 1904), exh. cat., Saint-Gilles, Musée Horta, 12 October 2017 – 7 January 2018, pp. 79 ; Xavier Tricot, Henry Van de Velde, catalogue raisonné of the paintings and the works on paper, Anvers, Ronny Van de Velde, 2021, n°36, pp. 362.

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