The farmhouse belonging to the De Groot family stood here in Vincent’s time. Vincent painted the farmhouse and the family acted as models for countless studies of peasants’ heads and hands. In April and May 1885 he painted what he considered to be his first truly successful work: The Potato Eaters. It showed the De Groot family having a meal. He sent it to his brother Theo on 6 May, and also made a lithograph of it, with the aim of using it as proof of his aptitude.
