#Kees #discovers #detail #painting #Potato #Eaters #happy
Van Gogh fanatic Kees Rovers from Nuenen has made a major discovery in The Potato Eaters. In the world-famous painting, a religious image, a house blessing, hangs behind the kitchen table. It was never clear where this house blessing came from, but thanks to Kees it is now clear. After twenty years of searching, he found exactly the same religious print. Just on Marktplaats. “Amazing! I’m very proud.”
In Vincent van Gogh’s famous painting you see a house blessing hanging between the clock and the box bed. That is a religious picture that people used to hang at home to protect themselves.
Kees Rovers, together with historian Gerard Rooijakkers, discovered that the house blessing of The Potato Eaters was previously brought from Kevelaer. This pilgrimage site is located in Germany, 57 kilometers from Nuenen. “Nobody knew this,” says 78-year-old Kees.
He found out thanks to some clever detective work. Kees scoured Marktplaats and auctions for twenty years, looking for a religious print exactly like that of The Potato Eaters. “I wanted to complete the story.”
The house blessing in the painting The Potato Eaters.
Last week he had a bite. He found one on Marktplaats. To ensure that it was the same print as in the painting, Kees called in historian Rooijakkers. He made a report and confirmed his suspicion. “We now know that one of the potato eaters went on a pilgrimage to Kevelaer and brought that house blessing with him from there. I am so happy,” Kees says proudly.
The historian is also satisfied. “It is special that we now know this,” says Rooijakkers. “The discovery of the house blessing is not unique in itself. Hundreds of thousands of these house blessings have been printed. But now we know that Van Gogh depicted one from Kevelaer.”
Kees found this print on Marktplaats.
According to him, it is not surprising that this print, made by the De Groot farming family, hung on the wall of the potato eaters in Nuenen. Nuenen was a well-known departure point for pilgrimages to Kevelaer at the end of the nineteenth century.
In 1885, when Van Gogh painted the painting, mothers and children walked to this German town. There they bought a so-called house blessing. This print was blessed by a priest, so that people at home were protected against disasters such as flooding or the plague.
“During thunderstorms, the prayer that was written on the house blessing was prayed,” Rooijakkers explains. “Mother would pray at the table with the children. Father would then walk around the house with a bowl of holy water and a palm branch.”
“He belongs in Nuenen.”
Kees is happy that the whole story about the painting is now complete. He shared the information with the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. “They were very enthusiastic,” he says. And what will happen to his special house blessing? “He will never leave here. He belongs in Nuenen.”
YOU MAY ALSO FIND THIS INTERESTING:
Kees recreates Van Gogh paintings so that we can learn something from them, and here he shows them
Vincent van Gogh’s Gordina is ‘home again’ after 80 years
