Vincent Van Gogh

Theo van Gogh, Paris (acquired from the artist on 2nd July 1889)
Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, Amsterdam (acquired from the above)
Henry van de Velde, Wassenaar/The Hague (acquired from the above in 1894)
Fritz Wolff, Munich (1911)
C.M. van Gogh Art Gallery, Amsterdam ( acquired circa 1919-20)
Caspari Art Gallery, Munich
Julius W. Böhler, Lucerne
Paul Cassirer Art Gallery, Berlin (acquired by 1929-35)
Delbrück, Schickler & Co. Bankers, Berlin (on consignment from the above)
Sale: Paul Graupe, Berlin, 27th May 1935, lot 69 (as the property of the Bank 'D. Sch. Berlin', but on consignment from the Paul Cassirer Art Gallery, who received the full proceeds of the sale)
Wildenstein & Co., New York (purchased from the above sale)
Otto Gerson (trading as French Art Galleries and later as Fine Arts Associates), New York (acquired from the above in November 1939)
Ralph H. Booth, Detroit
William D. Vogel, Milwaukee (acquired by 1955)
Richard S. Davis, Wayzata, Minnesota (1957)
Myrtil Frank, New York
Fritz Nathan, Zürich
Mr & Mrs Mark C. Steinberg, St. Louis, Missouri (1970)
Lefevre Gallery (Alex Reid & Lefevre), London
Acquired from the above by the present owners in 1981

Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Vincent van Gogh, 1905, no. 389
Berlin, Paul Cassirer Art Gallery, Ein Jahrhundert Französischer Zeichnungen, 1929-30, no. 66
Bern, Kunsthalle, Französische Meister des 19. Jahrhunderts und van Gogh, 1934, no. 63
New York, Wildenstein & Co., Vincent van Gogh, 1955, no. 103
Milwaukee, Milwaukee Art Institute, An Inaugural Exhibition, 1957, no. 74
London, The Lefevre Gallery, Important 19^th and 20^th Century Paintings, 1980, no. 19
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Van Gogh in Saint-Rémy and Auvers, 1986-87, no. 16, illustrated in colour in the catalogue
Otterlo, Rijksmuseum  Kröller-Müller, Vincent van Gogh, Drawings, 1990, no. 227, illustrated in colour in the catalogue
Princeton, The Art Museum, Princeton University, In Celebration: Works of Art from The Collections of Princeton Alumni and Friends of the Art Museum, 1997, no. 203
Bremen, Kunsthalle, Van Gogh: Felder. Das Mohnfeld und der Künstlerstreit, 2002-03, no. 19, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Kunst und Künstler, Berlin, 1909, illustrated p. 99
Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, 'Eine Zeichnung van Goghs zu seinem in der Kunsthalle befindlichen Gemälde', in Jahrbuch der bremischen Sammlungen, vol. 4, Bremen, 1911, pp. 76-78, illustrated pl. XIX
Jacob Baart de la Faille, L'oeuvre de Vincent van Gogh, Paris, 1928, vol. III, no. 1494, catalogued p. 149; vol. IV, illustrated pl. CLXVIII
Jacob Baart de la Faille, The Works of Vincent van Gogh, London, 1970, no. 1494, pp. 520, 551, illustrated p. 550
Paolo Lecaldano, L'Opera pittorica completa di van Gogh, Da Arles a Auvers, Milan, 1977, no. 785A, illustrated p. 227
Jan Hulsker, The Complete van Gogh. Paintings, Drawings, Sketches, Oxford, 1980, no. 1752, illustrated p. 405
Roland Dorn, Van Gogh and the Modern Movement, 1890-1914 (exhibition catalogue), Museum Folkwang, Essen, 1990, p. 141
Jacob Baart de la Faille, Vincent van Gogh. The Complete Works on Paper. Catalogue Raisonné, San Francisco, 1992, vol. I, no. 1494, catalogued pp. 389-390; vol. II, no. 1494, illustrated pl. CLXVIII

Executed at Saint-Rémy in the summer of 1889, Le Champ de Coquelicots belongs to a series of drawings closely related to the oil of the same title (fig. 1), now in the collection of the Kunsthalle in Bremen, which Van Gogh painted in June of that year.

Having arrived at the asylum in Saint-Rémy on 8th May, Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo in a letter of 22nd May: 'Since I have been here, the deserted garden, planted with large pines beneath which the grass grows tall and unkempt and mixed with various weeds, has sufficed for my work and I have not yet gone outside. However, the country round Saint-Rémy is very beautiful and little by little I shall probably widen my field of endeavour' (The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh, London, 1999, vol. II, letter no. 592, p. 173). Due to the artist's seclusion within the asylum, his early Saint-Rémy paintings depicted the views of its garden. By the beginning of June, however, Van Gogh was allowed to leave the asylum walls, as reported to Theo on 9th June.

The oil version of Le Champ de Coquelicots was possibly the first painting executed outside the asylum, as discussed by Roland Dorn: 'Soon he was telling Theo about two landscapes (size 30 canvases), views of the hill behind the asylum. He describes the first in detail as a view from the window of his room on to a wheatfield flattened by a thunder storm (F. 611) but he does not say anything about the second. It may be surmised that this is the Poppies in the Field that is now in Bremen from one of the large drawings [F. 1494, the present drawing] that van Gogh sent to his brother at the beginning of July 1889 to give him and idea of the district and what he was working on. The drawing is not a copy of the composition but rather a reinterpretation; it is also a much more careful elucidation of the topography than the oil study. From a raised standpoint the view passes over a dip in the landscape in which small farms nestle, surrounded by fields. The buildings and bare empty terrain are separated by a path that rises from the plain in the distance at the foot of the nearest hill, before turning to the left and disappearing from sight. In the painting the squares of the field are much more strongly oriented to the field of vision, and the place from which the view is taken is further to the left' (R. Dorn, Van Gogh and the Modern Movement, Essen, 1990, p. 141).

Rather than executing this series of drawings, including the present work, as a study for the painting, Van Gogh executed them after the oil version. Ronald Pickvance discussed this practice: 'This phenomenon of producing drawings after paintings is very much van Gogh's own. In one sense, it is a glorified extension of a description, or a hasty sketch in a letter. Yet it was more; it became a complex and empirical balancing act in stylistic equivalences. The demands of conveying the essence of a painted image were pitted against the need to discover a coherent graphic vocabulary' (R. Pickvance, Vincent van Gogh Drawings, Otterlo, 1990, p. 287).