Cart with Black Ox

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Cart with Black Ox
Vincent van Gogh - Charrette de boeuf.jpg
Artist Vincent van Gogh
Year1884
Catalogue
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions60.0 cm× 80.0 cm(23.6 in× 31.5 in)
Location Portland Art Museum, Portland

Cart with Black Ox, or The Ox-Cart, is an oil painting created in 1884 by Vincent van Gogh. It has been cited as one of his important early works. [1] [2]

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Description

Created in the village of Nuenen before Van Gogh went to the South of France, the painting has a dark palette [1] and has been described as "disquieting"; the ox and cart are both decrepit. [3]

Cart with Black Ox was owned by a family who had bought it in 1950. It was donated in 2007 to the Portland Art Museum, [1] and as of 2010 is the most valuable gift yet made to the museum. [1] [2]

Curator Bruce Guenther argued, "The way the wheel becomes a definition lifted off the surface of the painting with the brush is Van Gogh establishing his vocabulary as a painter. He becomes Van Gogh here." [1]

In 2010, the painting was analyzed by digital X-ray and CT scanning to look for information on the artist's working methods and to add to the database at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. A painted-out flying bird was discovered. [2] A related painting made the same year, Cart with Red and White Ox , is in the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, the Netherlands.

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