Carter on a Country Road

Anton Mauve shared with Millet a commitment to painting the everyday lives of local peasants, which he likewise bestowed upon Van Gogh, his relative by marriage, when the younger painter sought Mauve’s instruction while living in The Hague in the early 1880s. Here, Mauve depicts a weary carter, his clogs a marker of his Dutch heritage, being pulled along with his load by an ox. A village—indicated by a minute church steeple—disappears along the distant horizon.