When looking at the Gender roles of Peasant Character Studies (Van Gogh series), how do you discuss its Women's Sewing and winding yarn?
Sewing and winding yarn Woman Sewing (F71) depicts a woman seated at a window.  In this study Van Gogh was experimenting with how to reflect an interior figure, backlit by a window.  Here the woman is a dark silhouette.  Van Gogh shows the effect of the light streaming in the window on her sewing.
In 1885 Van Gogh wrote his brother Theo of his attempts to manage the backlit lighting, "especially figures à contre jour (English against daylight). I have studies of heads, both lit and against the light, and I have worked on the whole figure a number of times, a seamstress, [someone] winding yarn or peeling potatoes. En face and en profil. I do not know whether or not I shall ever finish it, as this is a difficult effect, although I believe I have learned one or two things by it."The Woman Winding Yarn (F36) portrays a woman sitting close to a window, winding spools of yarn to be woven.  Weaving was a historical trade in Nuenen, where Van Gogh lived with his parents in 1884.  Van Gogh described the workers as "exceptionally poor folk." The woman in this painting is the mother of the De Groot family who is pouring coffee in The Potato Eaters painting.
English Potato Eaters Theo The Potato Eaters Nuenen à contre jour