Van Gogh's First Drawings

Although Vincent Van Gogh didn't decide to become an artist until he was 27, he had drawn as a hobby.  Sometimes the legend of Van Gogh claims that he didn't draw anything until he was 27, but Van Gogh biographers (such as Michael Howard, author of Van Gogh: His Life and Works in 500 Images note that he drew often to amuse his brother Theo when the pair were children.  Some were done with a stick on dirt s the medium and some were pencil and paper.

Whatever the subject was of Vincent's very first drawing is unknown.  He probably did what many babies or toddlers do and drew a tightly bunched series of circles or other scribbles.  Most toddlers make their first scribbles when they are 18 months old, according to Sandra Crosser, Ph.D.  What age Vincent was when he first put a marking implement to a surface is unknown. 

Van Gogh got used to writing letters when he was very young.  Even in those letters, he'd fire off a sketch.  Decades after Vincent's death, these oldest of sketches and drawings were called the "Juvenilia" done when Vincent was still a youth.

It is unknown with 100% which drawing is Van Gogh's oldest surviving work.  The excellent website VGGallery.com estimates that a drawing known simply as "The Goat Herd" (pictured above) earns this distinction.  It has been dated 9 August 1862, when Vincent was nine years old.  The drawing now resides in a private collection.

I'm assuming this drawing is a fragment of a larger drawing, because I am unaware that one goat constitutes a "herd."  Even at such a young age, Vincent's human figures are bent with the world's worries.