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]
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[update] 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]
