Featured Searching for Vincent van Gogh...

In 2015 I was invited to metal detect two gardens in the Dutch town of Nuenen. Normally not very exiting, but these gardens were in the 1880's part of the rectory of the nearby church. Parish clerk Johannes Schafrat rented rooms in the rectory. From may 1884 to november 1885 Vincent van Gogh hired one of his rooms where he lived and had his atelier.

The old rectory was demolished in the 1930's en new housing was placed on the ground. When we had the chance to metal detect there both gardens were just emptied.

Old and new situation



During my metal detecting session I found a lot of junk as you would expect in a garden. I also found 4 coins, a Chinese coin (a very strange find there...) from the 1700's, a Dutch provincial "duit" from the 1700's and 2 20th century coins.


One find was at first a mystery to me. It was made of copper and had a text on it:

BREVET 1883 LEMPEREUR BERNARD





I tried to find out what this could be and it turned up as a part of an oil lamp.



Vincent van Gogh lived in Nuenen from 1883 to 1885. The first year he stayed at his parents, where his father was a protestant vicar (Nuenen was mainly Catholic in that time). The most famous painting he made in Nuenen was "The Potato Eaters".

The Potato Eaters (1885) by Vincent van Gogh


In this painting you see an oil lamp. If we compare this lamp to a similar one of LEMPEREUR BERNARD there are remarkable similarities:



So I know " The Potato Eaters" was painted at that spot an I found a part of an oil lamp that is very similar to a lamp on the painting. That makes me dream I have discovered a piece of history. I know I can never prove this is really the actual oil lamp that was painted by van Gogh, but at least it makes a great story!

So what do you think? Could this find the real lamp in the Potato Eaters?

 

Nice find in an important location, it could be from a similar lamp.
But unlikely to be the lamp in 'The Potato Eaters', since they didn't live with van Gogh. They were the de Groot family, so you will have to dig near where they lived, on the Gerwenseweg just outside Nuenen.
Van Gogh's friend Willem van de Wakker mentioned the occasion and the lamp in the de Groot family cottage in his memoirs, so the lamp in the painting is likely their own lamp.

https://www.vangoghroute.com/the-netherlands/nuenen/family-de-groot/

Judging from the map, the de Groot cottage was just past 'de Roosdonck', the windmill on the Gerwenseweg, which was built around the same time.

 

It would be interesting to find out if someone who lived there in the 18th century had a VOC (Dutch East India Company) connection.

 

Sure I have thought about it, but it is likely that van Gogh made sketches at the De Groot family and painted in his workshop.

Here are some sketches made as a study for the Potato Eaters.

 

Of course, but on the other hand, Willem van de Wakker did mention the lamp.
It is quite possible both van Gogh and the de Groot family had the same model lamp, there must have been quite a lot of them. In which case this could have come from 'the' lamp.
"Every home should have one".

 

What a great experience that must have been for you. Were those Lamps pretty common back then? And would everyone use the same style for lighting as the one in the photo? Regardless, fantastic to just see this stuff you found.

 

Sure, de Groot family could have the same oil lamp as van Gogh/Schafrath, but de Groot family were very poor farmers and this lamp looks a bit too posh for them in my opinion.

 

In a similar vein, I have often wondered if the women actually wore the 'gazen muts' bonnet while eating a meal of potatoes. It would be interesting to know what kind of day it was.
According to the Vincentre (Vincent van Gogh Centre) 19th century Brabant farmers ate 4-6 times a day, with at least two potato meals. Maybe eating this particular potato meal while wearing a gazen muts made sense at the time.
A gazen muts would be bought from a 'mutsenmaakster', a lady who specialized in making local bonnets.

About a posh lamp, it didn't look really posh to me, so I did some internet digging.

Here is a Brabant family in 1914, admittedly after the date of the Potato Eaters, but the woman is wearing a simple home crocheted bonnet instead of a gazen muts or other professionally made bonnet, so they had no money to spare for luxury:



These two photos are not of Brabant farmers, but of the poorest of the poor in an Amsterdam slum in the late 19th century. In the first one there is an oil lamp on the cabinet on the right:


https://www.tussentaalenbeeld.nl/A60f6.htm

 

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Établissements_Lempereur_&_Bernard

 

https://www.ebay.fr/itm/Lampe-a-petrole-ancienne-verre-souffle-LEMPEREUR-BERNARD/124244584268