The Diggers (Van Gogh)
The Diggers (Van Gogh)
The Diggers is an 1889 oil painting by Vincent van Gogh. It shows two men digging up a tree stump in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France. It’s also known as Two Diggers among Trees to distinguish it from another painting with a similar theme.
Today the painting is in the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) in Detroit, Michigan. It’s not among Van Gogh’s most famous works, but it’s considered a high-quality piece. In 2006 its value was estimated at about 10 to 15 million dollars.
The artwork reflects Van Gogh’s love of nature and his interest in the rural scenes painted by Jean-François Millet, who influenced him.
Provenance (ownership history): Van Gogh painted The Diggers in 1889 in Saint-Rémy. After his death, his sister-in-law Johanna van Gogh-Bonger owned it. In 1907 it was sold to a Paris dealer, then to the Frankfurter Kunstverein in 1909. In 1912 Hugo Nathan and his wife Martha Nathan bought it, and Martha inherited it later. In 1938 the painting was sold to a group of dealers, who in 1941 sold it to Detroit collector Robert H. Tannahill. The Detroit Institute of Arts received the painting when Tannahill died in 1970.
Controversy over ownership: In May 2004, 15 heirs of Martha Nathan said the painting should belong to Nathan’s family because it had been sold under Nazi persecution. A provenance study by Laurie Stein in 2006 suggested the work had been moved to Basel in 1930 and that the 1938 sale was a normal market transaction. The DIA argued that Nathan’s family owned the painting before the Nazi era and that the sale was legitimate; no restitution claim was made for many years. In 2007 a court ruled in favor of the museum, and later actions were dismissed. The case drew criticism from some groups who support restitution for Nazi-era losses. In 2016, the HEAR Act was passed to address such cases, but historians remain divided on whether this painting should be returned.
The Detroit Institute of Arts continues to display The Diggers as part of its collection.
This page was last edited on 1 February 2026, at 21:51 (CET).