Shoes

Vincent van Gogh

1888 · Oil on canvas · European Paintings

Van Gogh painted several still lifes of shoes or boots during his Paris period. This picture, painted later, in Arles, evinces a unique return to the earlier motif. However, here Van Gogh has placed the shoes within a specific spatial context: namely, the red-tile floor of the Yellow House. Not only may we identify the setting, but perhaps the owner of the shoes as well. It has been suggested that this "still life of old peasants' shoes" may have been those of Patience Escalier, whose portrait Van Gogh executed around the same time, late summer 1888.

Artist

Vincent van Gogh

Date

1888

Medium

Oil on canvas

Department

European Paintings

Credit line

Purchase, The Annenberg Foundation Gift, 1992