Interior of a Restaurant, allegedly by Vincent van Gogh but disputed by Van Gogh Museum specialists
Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum is breaking its normal policy by commenting on the authenticity of three alleged Van Gogh paintings currently held in private collections.
For many years, the Van Gogh Museum has refrained from determining which paintings are true Van Gogh works and which ones are fakes or forgeries. Instead, they focus on researching the artist’s life and educating the public about his work using the museum’s inventory. They seem to do an excellent job at this since the Van Gogh Museum is the most visited cultural institution in the Netherlands, attracting slightly more visitors than the Rijksmuseum. In breaking with museum policy, three specialists from the museum have recently discussed their findings regarding three works, which they regard as copies or forgeries of pre-existing Van Gogh paintings. Teio Meedendorp, Saskia van Oudheusden, and Louis van Tilborgh recently shared their conclusions with the British fine arts publication The Burlington Magazine.
The first painting, Interior of a Restaurant, was originally believed to be a second version of a verified Van Gogh painting by some specialists. Van Gogh created the original, Interior of the Grand Bouillon-Restaurant le Chalet, Paris, in 1887. The “second version” would not appear in any documentary evidence until the 1950s. The museum experts say that the brushstroke pattern and the color palette are inconsistent with Van Gogh’s work during his two years in Paris. Chemical tests on the painting also revealed traces of Manganese blue, a type of paint that would not become commercially available until 1935, forty-five years after the artist’s death. Furthermore, the flowers decorating the restaurant tables are different. The museum specialists show that the red flowers in the original are autumn begonias, in season in France in November and December. They speculate that the copy’s author was working from a black-and-white photograph and instead put sunflowers on the tables. Since sunflower season is in September, it does not make sense for Van Gogh to create the two paintings around the same time. This detail led Meedendorp, Van Oudheusden, and Van Tilborgh to determine that this was not simply a copy but a deliberate forgery. Sunflowers are closely linked with Van Gogh’s work, and the forger was likely trying to make the painting more appealing to try to pass the painting off as an original to sell.
The second painting is Head of a Woman, which the Van Gogh Museum previously authenticated as part of the estate of Gerbrand Visser. It was considered a product of Van Gogh’s time in Nuenen, where he created a series of peasant portraits. The painting later sold at Christie’s New York in 2011, where it made $993.3K w/p. Despite the museum’s seal of approval, things became complicated after a different version of the same painting came to light in a French collection. After examining the painting again, the museum now concludes that Head of a Woman is a copy created between 1902 and 1909 and that the French painting is Van Gogh’s original. They note, however, that the copyist was likely working from the original rather than a photograph. Finally, the third painting is a watercolor of a peasant collecting wood. It is based on a larger painting Wood Gatherers in the Snow, which Van Gogh created in 1884. The copy, meanwhile, was probably made around 1904 and solely shows one of the original’s several figures. The solo figure may not have caught the attention of some specialists since Van Gogh often created studies for later paintings using watercolor. Specialists theorize that the copyist may have been working from a photograph, as the colors are completely different, and several details are omitted. The leaves attached to the wood, a snow-covered farmhouse in the background, and the stick used to secure the wood bundle to the man’s back have all disappeared.
The three disputed paintings have previously been included in Jacob-Baart de la Faille’s 1970 Van Gogh catalogue raisonné. Due to their inclusion, this attribution has held for over fifty years. However, this may be a learning opportunity for some collectors and specialists, as attributions are never completely set in stone. They can change as new information comes to light, and no single academic’s word should be taken as gospel.