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Primary sourcePhotograph1866

School Class Photograph, Koning Willem II Hogere Burgerschool, Tilburg

Unknown · 1866

A school class photograph from Tilburg in 1866 that includes the teenage Vincent van Gogh.

This class photograph shows Vincent van Gogh as a teenager at a school he later remembered as austere and cold.

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Cropped black-and-white photograph of a young boy with light, tousled hair wearing a dark jacket, light shirt, and dark bow tie, with his arms folded at the bottom of the frame. Behind him are blurred figures and a dark background.
Unknown photographer, School Class Photograph, Koning Willem II Hogere Burgerschool, Tilburg, 1866.

About this source

What it is

This is a cropped black-and-white class photograph from the Koning Willem II Hogere Burgerschool in Tilburg, taken in 1866. The photographer is unknown. It shows a young boy identified as the teenage Vincent van Gogh.

Why it matters

Van Gogh later described his time at this school as austere and cold. This photograph is one of the few surviving images of him as a child, giving a rare glimpse of his life before he became a painter, during years that shaped his later feelings about education and discipline.

Look closer

  • What does the boy's posture and expression suggest about how he felt at school?
  • Why might only a small, cropped part of the original class photo survive or be used here?
  • How might Van Gogh's later memories of this school change how we look at this image?

This photograph is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Vincent van Gogh on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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