Vincent van Gogh makes several sketches and drawings showing the Catholic Lambert Church. These include letter sketches JH 37, JH 58 and drawing JH 36.
Vincent van Etten regularly walks to Leur. Along that road are many pollard willows, a motif he likes to draw: "I see in the whole of nature, for example in trees, expression and as it were a soul. A row of pollarded willows has something of an orphan procession sometimes.'
A letter sketch of Leurseweg with pollard willows shows the silhouette of St. Lambert's Church in the background. This neo-Gothic cross basilica on Etten's Market Square had just been consecrated at that time. It is an imposing structure for the Roman Catholic community, which visibly emancipated after the restoration of the episcopal hierarchy in 1853. A replica of St. Peter's in Rome is even being built in Oudenbosch. For the vicar's son, this must be a strange sensation. Vincent may not have visited St. Lambert's Church, but he always passed the building on his walks to Leur.
