• Mrs. J. van Gogh-Bonger, Amsterdam
• V.W. van Gogh, Laren
• Van Gogh Museum inv nr F 1024

• First exhibited 1905 Amsterdam, 239

"Then the little living room with a table, a few kitchen chairs, an oil stove, a large wicker armchair for the woman in the corner by the window overlooking the yard and the meadows that you know from the drawing, and next to it a small iron cradle with a green cover.

This last piece of furniture is something I cannot look at without emotion — because a man is gripped by a strong and powerful emotion when he sits down next to the woman he loves with a baby in the cradle beside them."

Such wrote Vincent to his brother, in letter 245, on 6 July 1882, two days after his companion's baby Willem was born. The drawing shows the baby and his about 6 years old sister Maria Wilhelmina.

• Catalogues raisonnés :
• F1024: Faille, Jacob Baart de la (1970) [1928] The Works of Vincent van Gogh. His Paintings and Drawings, Misterdam : J.M. Meulenhoff, nº1024 .
• JH336 : Jan Hulsker (1980), The Complete Van Gogh, Oxford: Phaidon, nº 336.
  
• Compare sketch in letter 330. Also drawings F1007, F1008 and F1685. Hulsker thinks F1007 and F1008 are of Sien's younger sister (about ten years old), also called Maria Wilhelmina (however in F1020a she is shown wearing a braid). At any rate, Hulsker thinks these drawings are a high point of Vincent's Hague period as far as power of expression is concerned (Hulsker p. 74)
• In letter 327 Vincent mentions he had used natural (also known as mountain) chalk for the drawing, a medium he especially prized for its blackness (Hulsker pp.78-80, Naifeh and Smith 333-4). Hulsker lists as similarly executed with mountain chalk F1020a, F872, F1072, F1025, and probably several other studies listed as executed with "black chalk".
• Letters
• Letter 330 to Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 18 March 1883. Vincent van Gogh: The Letters. Van Gogh Museum. "Now I’m doing scratches anyway, I’m adding a very superficial one of a drawing in natural chalk, the girl at the cradle,5 done in the same way as the woman and the child you wrote about. This natural chalk really is odd stuff."
• Letter 327 to Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 11 March 1883. Vincent van Gogh: The Letters. Van Gogh Museum. "Regarding the natural chalk — I don’t know whether what I got from you came from the Plaats, but I’m sure that I got it from you at the time of your visit last summer, or perhaps in Etten still. I found a very small remnant at a chemist’s, about six pieces but all in small bits. Bear it in mind. When I asked Leurs about it again he told me that Jaap Maris had often asked him for it. I’ve done two more sketches with it, a cradle [this drawing] and one similar to one I’d already sent in which I used a lot of sepia wash [possibly F1072]."
• Letter 245 to Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Thursday, 6 and Friday, 7 July 1882. Vincent van Gogh: The Letters. Van Gogh Museum. "The studio looks so authentic, it seems to me: plain, grey-brown wallpaper, scrubbed floorboards, muslin fixed to laths in front of the windows [to filter the light], everything bright. And of course the studies on the wall, an easel on each side, and a big pine-wood work-table. Adjoining the studio is a sort of alcove where the drawing boards, portfolios, boxes, sticks, &c. are, and also where all the prints lie. And in the corner a cupboard with all the little pots and bottles, and also all my books. Then the little living room with a table, some kitchen chairs, a paraffin stove, a big wicker armchair for the woman in the little corner by the window overlooking the yard and meadows familiar to you from the drawing [probably F939], and next to it a small iron cradle with a green coverlet. I can’t look at the last piece of furniture without emotion, for it’s a strong and powerful emotion that grips a person when one has sat beside the woman one loves with a child in the cradle near her."

• ; Naifeh, Steven; Smith, Gregory White (2011) Van Gogh: The Life, Profile Books ISBN : 978-1846680106.