Who was "Sien"?

Clasina Maria Hoornik was born in The Hague on 22 February 1850, making her three years older than Vincent. In the letters to his brother, Theo, Vincent rarely mentioned Clasina's name (most of the time referring to her as "the woman"), but when he did he called her "Christien" which he would later shorten to "Sien". It is by this single name that she is best remembered.

Sien lead an extremely difficult life which, in some ways, made her an ideal match for Vincent. Her father died in 1875 and her life in The Hague was divided between working as a seamstress (as shown in this drawing) and prostitution. Before meeting Vincent, Sien had two other illegitimate children who died early in life. When Sien first met Vincent she had a daughter, Maria Wilhelmina, aged five (shown seated in this drawing) and was pregnant with a son. This second child is sometimes wrongly thought to be Vincent's, but it was conceived months before Vincent and Sien ever met.

In Letter 192 Vincent wrote to Theo about his first meeting with Sien:

Vincent would live with Sien for more than a year and a half. This time was marked by physical and emotional instability by both Vincent as well as Sien. As Vincent became more and more involved in his work, Sien was pressured by her mother to return to prostitution in order to earn a better living. Vincent and Sien would often argue about their abject poverty. Despite Vincent's deep longing for a family life, he and Sien would eventually end their relationship.

The Drawing: Woman Sewing, with a Girl

In the work shown on this page, Vincent van Gogh expertly captures the complex nature of his relationship with Sien and her family. The drawing, while beautifully executed, shows little familial warmth between the subjects of the work. On the contrary, Vincent's depiction of the girl's face is done with incredible precision in that it masterfully conveys feelings of isolation and loneliness while using a minimum of pencil strokes.

At the same time, however, there is a quality of domestic charm to the scene: a quiet moment with the mother sewing in close proximity to her daughter. Vincent would often draw Sien and her family in a compassionate, but by no means overly-sentimental, fashion. The drawing Girl Kneeling by a Cradle is a lovely composition of Sien's daughter kneeling by the cradle of the new baby and watching him sleep.

Visions of domestic happiness

One of the common misconceptions about Vincent van Gogh is that he was antisocial and disdainful of a contented family life. While Van Gogh did, in fact, spend most of his life in isolation from others, he frequently longed for a family of his own throughout most of his life. Despite his often volatile relationship with Sien, Vincent's letters during the period clearly show the happiness that he derived from his time spent with her:

The letter above was written just four days after the birth of Sien's son, Willem, on 2 July 1882. Vincent would cherish the child as if it were his own and found a great deal of joy in young Willem's company:

When Sien and Vincent decided together to end their relationship Vincent maintained a great deal of compassion toward the Hoornik family. Sien and her children saw Vincent off at The Hague's train station as he began the next leg of his life long journey. Vincent wrote to Theo simply: " . . . the parting was not very easy."

Other Sien Drawings

Van Gogh's many drawings of Sien are stark and uncompromising. Vincent once described Sien as "pockmarked" and "no longer beautiful" and his drawings, while arguably sympathic toward its subject, are nevertheless unromanticized and realistic. In the famous lithograph "Sorrow", for example, one sees a woman overwhelmed with despair--an unusual nude in terms of the harsh depiction of its subject.

Many of the dozens of drawings of Sien show her frowning or in unflattering situations. Nude Woman, Squatting, for example, was unusual in the frank nature of its subject matter.

Sien's Unhappy End

It comes as no surprise that Sien's life after Vincent would remain miserable and with little hope of finding happiness.

Sien's relationship with her family was so unstable that at times she would turn over custody of her daughter, Maria, to her mother and her son, Willem, to her brother.

In 1901 she married Arnoldus Franciscus van Wijk as a means of giving her son, Willem, a respectable name. The marriage was one defined more by convenience than by love, however, and Sien found that married life provided her with no means of release from her own personal despair and anguish.

It's believed that Sien once told Vincent that she would one day drown herself. In 1904 Sien did indeed drown herself in the Schelde River ending a life filled with tragedy and profound unhappiness. Ironically, Vincent prophesied about Sien's fate in Letter 216 (19 July 1882), but found comfort in the thought:

1. Sjraar van Heugten, Volume One: Drawings--The Early Years, 1880-1883 (V+K Publishing, 1996).
2. Jan Hulsker, Vincent and Theo Van Gogh: A Dual Biography (Fuller Technical Publications, 1990).
3. Ken Wilkie, In Search of Van Gogh (Prima, 1991).