Vincent van Gogh: ‘Country Cottages Among the Trees’

At the European Art Gallery of the National Museum in Kraków, we are exhibiting the only painting by Vincent van Gogh in Polish public collections, entitled Country Cottages Among the Trees, from the John Paul II Collection belonging to the Archdiocese of Warsaw.

The work was created in September 1883 and represents the artist’s early Dutch period. It is an intimate landscape depicting modest rural buildings set amidst a dense mass of trees. The simplicity of the composition, the economy of formal means, and the dark, subdued colour palette place the work within the aesthetic of realism and stand in stark contrast to the artist’s later French period, marked by intense colours and the influence of Impressionism. The painting reveals strong links to the Hague School, as well as indirect references to the tradition of 17th-century Dutch landscape painting.

The turbulent history of this landscape illustrates the shifting reception of Van Gogh’s work. After the artist left Nuenen, the painting was among other works of his that were packed into crates by his mother and forgotten for many years. Stored in the attic of the carpenter Adrianus Schrauwen, they were considered worthless. It was not until 1902 that Johannes Cornelis Couvreur bought the contents of the attic for a nominal sum, attempting to sell the canvases from a pedlar’s cart and giving some away in exchange for beer.

The gradual recognition of the paintings’ value by Cornelis Mouwen and Willem van Bakel initiated a process of conservation and sale of the works, as a result of which the paintings found their way to the Oldenzeel Gallery in Rotterdam. In the following decades, the work found its way into many private collections, including the prestigious Swiss collection of the Meyer-Fierz family. In 1987, the painting was purchased at a Christie’s auction in London by Zbigniew Karol Porczyński (Charles Zbigniew Carroll-Porczyński) and transported to Warsaw, where it became part of the John Paul II Collection, currently owned by the Archdiocese of Warsaw (on deposit at Mt 5,14 | Museum of John Paul II and Primate Wyszyński).

Exhibition curatorial team: Miłosz Kargol, Dr Katarzyna Płonka-Bałus, Dr Adam Spodaryk

Based on the exhibition catalogue: “Van Gogh. Stories of a Single Painting” (2024), ed. Stefania Ambroziak, Anna Biskupska, published by Mt 5,14 | Museum of John Paul II and Primate Wyszyński.

Object:

Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890), Country Cottages Among the Trees, Netherlands, near The Hague, September 1883.

From the collection of John Paul II – property of the Archdiocese of Warsaw, on deposit at Mt 5,14 | Museum of John Paul II and Primate Wyszyński in Warsaw