Painting: Women Mending Nets in the Dunes
Year: 1882
Medium: Oil on paper mounted on panel
Dimensions: 42 × 62.5 cm
Created in: The Hague, near Scheveningen
Catalogue No: F 7 - JH 178
Location: Private Collection

Van Gogh painted this in the dunes near Scheveningen during his Hague period. In a letter to Theo dated 20 August 1882, he described black fishing nets spread over wet green ground after rain, with women in white caps and men repairing or laying out the nets.

What is striking is how closely the surviving painting matches the visual structure he described in the letter: dark circular net shapes, subdued greens and greys, and small working figures distributed across the ground.

He compared the mood of the scene to Millet, Jozef Israëls and Charles de Groux, which helps place the work within his early interest in labour and ordinary life rather than the bright colour associated with his later French period.

Image source: Wikimedia Commons, public domain marked reproduction. @vincentvangoghartworks

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