The Noordbrabants Museum in Den Bosch will host a world-famous guest for six months. It is Gordina de Groot from Nuenen. She was the model for Vincent van Gogh’s work ‘Head of a Woman’. The painting can be seen by the general public again after eighty years. “It’s nice to have her back home.”
The ‘Head of a Woman’ canvas has been privately owned for a long time. In 2023 it was transferred from a banker from The Hague to a British art collector. The new owner is now temporarily loaning it to the Den Bosch museum.
Curator Helewise Berger cannot believe her luck now that the masterpiece from Van Gogh’s Brabant period is in the museum. “It is an incredibly special painting and we are proud to be able to show it here. It also belongs on Brabant soil.”
“You can clearly see how hard life was on the land.”
In the painting you see the Nuenen Gordina de Groot. According to Berger, her expression is especially impressive. “Gordina was a farmer’s daughter and you clearly see how hard life on the land was.”
Gordina was often a model for Van Gogh. “For example, you can also see her in Van Gogh’s masterpiece ‘The Potato Eaters’. He called her Sien. We know her name because Van Gogh mentioned her in a letter from Paris. Near Nuenen she was also called Dien. “
“Those women’s heads from here with the white hats – it’s difficult.”
In the winter of 1884-1885, Van Gogh painted a whole series of studies of farmers’ heads in Nuenen. At the time, the Brabant peasant women wore white hats. These fascinated the painter because of the contrast with the faces that remained partly in the shadows. ‘Those women’s heads from here with the white hats – it is difficult – but it is so eternally beautiful –’ wrote Van Gogh.
The Noordbrabants museum actually wanted to buy the painting, but was quickly outbid last year. “We thought that was a shame and we took our courage and went to the owner in London.”
“It’s nice to have her back home.”
“We asked if the canvas could be taken to Brabant and he agreed,” says Berger proudly. “He bought it for £5.5 million, but we can now borrow it from him for six months. We are extremely grateful to him for that.”
This opinion is shared by Anne-Marie, volunteer at the Noordbrabants museum. While she is showing a group around, she cannot believe her luck. “It’s great that we now have Gordina in the museum. Nice to have her back home!”
“It still gives me goosebumps a little.”
“This is really one of Van Gogh’s works where you actually see him yourself, reflected by this woman,” Anne-Marie explains. “Truly a woman of flesh and blood. It still gives me a bit of goosebumps. Delicious!”
The painting will be on display in the Noordbrabants Museum for six months from Tuesday, January 16.
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Van Gogh enthusiast Kees Rovers was extremely disappointed last year that the painting did not end up in Brabant hands
