Nuenen: Vincent rented a studio from the Catholic sexton Johannes Schafrat beginning in May 1884. After his father's death, Vincent went to live there as well. In time it became difficult to find models. The parish priest forbade his parishioners to pose. He would even pay them if they didn't. This is one of the reasons why Vincent left Nuenen at the end of November and went to Antwerp. Moreover, he hoped to learn something at the academy there and longed for an art world he had missed for so long. In 1914, Anton Kerssemakers, with whom Vincent was a friend, put his memories of the studio on paper. The sexton's house was demolished in 1936.
