Shoes

During his Paris years, Vincent van Gogh painted several still lifes depicting shoes or boots, a motif he later revisited in Arles with renewed purpose. In this work, however, the shoes are placed within a clearly defined spatial setting, the red-tiled floor of the Yellow House, grounding the subject in lived experience. Beyond identifying the location, scholars have suggested a possible owner as well: the worn peasant shoes may have belonged to Patience Escalier, whom Van Gogh portrayed around the same period in late summer 1888, lending the painting an added layer of personal and social resonance.