What is the title of Van Gogh's first major painting?

The Potato Eaters is generally regarded as Van Gogh’s first major painting. He completed it in spring 1885 while living with his parents in Nuenen, the Dutch village where he concentrated on rural workers and peasant life.

The large, dark interior shows five people gathered around a table eating potatoes by lamplight. Van Gogh wanted the scene to convey that the figures had worked the soil with the same hands they now used to eat their meal. Its earthy palette and rough, deliberate handling reflect his admiration for earlier Dutch peasant painters.

The painting was the culmination of months of preparation, including studies of faces, hands, interiors, and the De Groot family, who served as models. Van Gogh hoped it would establish him as a serious artist and help him reach the Paris art market through his brother Theo.

It is sometimes called his first masterpiece or first fully fledged work rather than his first painting. Van Gogh had already produced many drawings and paintings; The Potato Eaters was his first major ambitious figure composition.