Weeping Woman Seated on a Basket - by Vincent van Gogh

Van Gogh drew a few sorrowful figures and this Weeping Woman Seated on a Basket is one of that. It is done with black lithographic crayon, grey wash, white and grey opaque watercolor, traces of squaring, on watercolor paper.

In a letter to friend, Van Gogh described his drawing with the sorrowful figures:

It seems to me that a painter has a duty to try to put an idea into his work. I was trying to say this in this print - but I can't say it as beautifully, as strikingly as reality, of which this is only a dim reflection seen in a dark mirror - that it seems to me that one of the strongest pieces of evidence for the existence of 'something on high' in which Millet believed, namely in the existence of a God and eternity, is the unutterably moving quality that there can be in the expression of an old man like that, without his being aware of it perhaps, as he sits so quietly in the corner of his hearth. At the same time something precious, something noble, that can't be meant for the worms. ... This is far from all theology - simply the fact that the poorest woodcutter, heath farmer or miner can have moments of emotion and mood that give him a sense of an eternal home that he is close to."