Long-lost Van Gogh painting identified
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, September 10, 2013
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Alex Ruger, director of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, presents a painting by Vincent Van Gogh, entitled “Sunset at Montmajour” and painted in 1888. The director described the discovery of the large French landscape oil painting by the Dutch master as “a once in a lifetime experience.” The painting had been lying for a century in the attic of a Norwegian collector who thought the artwork was a fake after buying it in 1908. The picture, painted on July 4, 1888 when Van Gogh was living in Arles in the south of France, will go on show at the museum later this month for a year. |
“Sunset at Montmajour” depicts a dry landscape of oak trees, bushes and sky, painted with Van Gogh’s familiar thick brush strokes. It can be dated to the exact day it was painted because Vincent described it in a letter to his brother, Theo, and said he painted it the previous day — July 4, 1888.
He said the painting was done “on a stony heath where small twisted oaks grow.”
Museum experts said the painting was authenticated by Van Gogh’s letters, the style and the physical materials used, and they had traced its history.
Museum director Axel Rueger described the discovery as a “once-in-a-lifetime experience” at an unveiling ceremony.
“This is a great painting from what many see as the high point of his artistic achievement, his period in Arles, in southern France,” he said. “In the same period he painted works such as ‘Sunflowers’ and ‘The Yellow House’.”
The museum said the painting now belongs to an unidentified private collector and will be on display at the museum from September 24.
It did not disclose full details of how the painting had been recovered, but said it had been owned by a Norwegian man who had been told it was not by Van Gogh, so it languished for years in his family’s attic.
Rueger said the museum had itself rejected the painting’s authenticity once in the 1990s, in part because it was not signed by the artist.
But a new two-year investigation had convinced them, with new techniques of chemical analysis of the pigments showing they were identical to others Van Gogh used on his palette at Arles — including typical discolorations.
Meanwhile, an X-ray examination of the canvas showed it was of the same type Van Gogh used on other paintings from the period, such as “The Rocks,” which hangs in Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts.
Researcher Teio Meedendorp said he and other researchers “have found answers to all the key questions, which is remarkable for a painting that has been lost for more than 100 years.”
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