Explore the Vicarage and church of this artwork, Van Gogh's family in his art.
In 1882 Vincent's father became pastor in Nuenen situated in the North Brabant province of the Netherlands.  Having been in Drenthe for several months, Vincent came to live with his parents in December 1883 and stayed there until May 1885.  The laundry room at the back of the house was turned into a studio for him.  Theo's father wrote to him: "We do not think it’s really suitable, but we have had a proper stove installed... I wanted to put in a large window as well, but he prefers not to have one."A simple two-story stone building, the parsonage sat on the main street of Nuenen.  The second story provided Vincent beautiful views, including a church tower in the distance.  The laundry room became his studio. Vincent recorded the changing seasons in his paintings of the garden, which was enclosed by a high stone wall and included a duck pond with a boat dock, paths and hedges, flower and vegetable garden plots and an orchard.			
			
		
		
			
			
		
Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen (F25) was made early 1884 for his parents, his father the pastor of the church since 1882.  Vincent's mother, Anna van Gogh, was healing from a broken thighbone. Vincent wrote to his brother, "Taking her difficult situation into consideration, I am glad to say Mother's spirits are very even and bright. And she is amused by trifles. The other day I painted for her a little church with the hedge and the trees."  The letter included a sketch with one person in front of the church, a peasant with a spade.  X-rays of the painting indicate that Vincent later added church members and autumn leaves to the previously bare trees, which made the work more colorful.  The changes were not likely made before the fall of 1885.  Vincent may have added the woman in mourning and congregation members for his mother as a memorial for his father's death.  The painting was stolen from the Van Gogh Museum on 7 December 2002. The painting was recovered in Naples, Italy in September 2016.The Rectory Garden in Nuenen in the Snow (F194) depicts a worker shoveling a path in the snow of the Vincent's garden.  The winter scene of bare-branched trees and gloomy sky hints of the preceding fall by a few remaining red leaves. Vincent wrote to Theo: "The life and death of peasants remain forever the same, withering regularly, like the grass and flowers growing in that churchyard."  The Norton Simon Museum reports that X-ray of the painting shows that underneath this painting is a painting of a woman at her spinning wheel.
Theo Nuenen North Brabant Van Gogh Museum Drenthe Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen Norton Simon Museum Netherlands