The lost Arles sketchbook is a purported sketchbook of drawings by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. The attribution of the drawings by the art historian Bogomila Welsh-Ovcharov to Van Gogh has been disputed. [1]
The sketchbook was published in 2016 as Vincent van Gogh: The Lost Arles Sketchbook, by Welsh-Ovcharov with a foreword by Ronald Pickvance. [1] It was published in French by Éditions de Seuil and in English by Abrams Books. [2]
In 2007 a Dutch art collector approached Teio Meedendorp, a senior researcher at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, with photographs of 21 sketches he had purchased for "a low price" on the internet auction site eBay. [3] Meedendorp told him that he did not believe they were by Vincent van Gogh. [3] The French art expert Franck Bailie was later informed about the existence of the sketchbook by a friend and met a family member of the owner. He later said that he "felt straight away that these were genuine".
Bailie subsequently approached the Van Gogh Museum in 2008 with 35 other sketches from the book. He was accompanied by a member of the family of the owner of the sketchbook, and was informed by the museum of their doubts about their authenticity. [3] Bailie then approached the art historian Bogomila Welsh-Ovcharov and invited her to investigate the authenticity of the sketches. [3] She recalled that her " ... first feeling was an incredible overwhelming feeling that I know what I have in my hands ... But then, of course, I knew I needed to do the scholarship". [2] She said that she had taken three years to authenticate the works and later described them as the "most revolutionary discovery in [the] entire history of Van Gogh's oeuvre". [3]
Art historian Ronald Pickvance said that the drawings were " ... absolutely O.K., from one to 65 ... End of song, end of story". [2]
A narrative of the sketchbook's survival was described by Welsh-Ovcharov. She said that the sketchbook, a commercial ledger, had been given to Van Gogh in 1888 by Joseph and Marie Ginoux who owned the Cafe de la Gare in Arles. [2] He sketched the Provençal landscape around Arles in the ledger and continued to work in it during his stay at a mental asylum in Saint Remy. In May 1890 he asked his doctor to return items to the Ginoux family, these included the sketchbook. The delivery of the ledger was recorded in a notebook at the Cafe de la Gare. The Ginoux family owned the sketchbook until 1944. It was then inherited by a niece of the Ginoux family, Marguerite Crevoulin. [2] The cafe was subsequently bought by the Basso family, the owner of the sketchbook in 2016 told Welsh-Ovcharov that her mother's sister became a member of the Basso family upon marriage. [3] The sketchbook and the book containing details of the sketchbooks donation were "recovered" from a home belonging to the Ginoux family home by a neighbour who gave them to her daughter as a birthday present in the 1960s. The daughter was the owner of the sketchbook in 2016. [2]
Welsh-Ovcharov said that she had told her that "My mother found the large book of drawings...and knowing nothing about art and with no artistic education, she had no idea of the importance of this discovery. She gave it to me on my 20th birthday and it was put away in a cupboard". [3] Welsh-Ovcharov described the owners as "very simple people and it was just by quirk of fate that they showed it to someone in the region who knew a local art specialist ... They took 30 of them and ripped them out of the book". [2]
The Van Gogh Museum said that the purported survival of the sketchbook was "highly improbable" and that the "drawing style of the maker of the drawings in the lost Arles sketchbook is, in the opinion of our experts, monotonous, clumsy and spiritless". [3] The ink used in the drawings is brown while Van Gogh typically used black or purple ink according to the museum. [3] [2] Meedendorp said that discrepancies were apparent from the dates recorded in the notebook of the cafe. On 20 May 1890 Van Gogh's doctor brought a large book of drawings to the cafe, detailed in the notebook as "Monsieur Doctor Rey left for M. and Mme. Ginoux from the painter Van Goghe [sic] some empty olive boxes and a bundle of checked towels as well as a large book of drawings and apologizes for the delay". [2] In 2013 the museum had been shown pictures of the notebook that referenced 19 June 1890, yet the book The Lost Arles Sketchbook of 2016 included a reference to 10 June 1890. The museum said "We would very much like to know how this is possible ... How reliable is the notebook if exactly the same statement can be found on two different dates?". [4]
The publisher of the Lost Arles Sketchbook, Editions du Seuil, said they had " ... not changed our minds and are very happy that from now on everybody can make their own opinion after seeing the drawings and reading the analysis". [3]
Bailie said that the Van Gogh Museum had acted unethically and that "You would expect experts to act scientifically but they have never had these photos in their hands except for 50 minutes ... Unfortunately their arguments do not have a lot of density. They are safeguarding their perimeter". [4]
The sketchbook is a "commercial ledger with high-quality paper" which contains 65 drawings in reed pen that depict studies of the landscape of Provence, and apparent preparatory sketches of paintings by Van Gogh. A self-portrait of Van Gogh and a portrait of Paul Gauguin are also included. [3] The Yellow House and Langlois Bridge and the sea at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer are also depicted. [2]
The valuation of the works ranged from "tens of millions" of pounds if they were authentic, to nothing if they are not. [3]
The sketches were described as "imitations" by the Van Gogh Museum upon their 2016 presentation. [3] [2] Louis van Tilborgh, a senior researcher at the museum said that "In our opinion, it's not authentic ... Owners of the sketchbook have asked our opinion in 2007 and 2012 again, and we studied the iconography, style and technique, and studied the provenance, and we came to the conclusion that it’s not by him. We have not changed our opinion". [2]
Van Gogh's supposed creation of the sketchbook was portrayed in the 2016 film At Eternity's Gate , directed by Julian Schnabel and starring Willem Dafoe as Van Gogh. [5] The inclusion of the sketchbook in the film was criticized by the art historian Martin Bailey. [5] Bailey describes the drawings as "weakly drawn, derivative works". He disputes the 2016 discovery of the drawings having previously been shown some of them in 2010. [5] Schnabel said in an interview with The Times that the authenticity of the drawings is "irrelevant" and "they were pretty damn good". [5]
Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade he created approximately 2100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, and are characterised by bold, symbolic colours, and dramatic, impulsive and highly expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. He sold only one painting during his lifetime and became famous after his suicide, aged 37, which followed years of poverty and mental illness.
Sunflowers is the title of two series of still life paintings by the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh. The first series, executed in Paris in 1887, depicts the flowers lying on the ground, while the second set, made a year later in Arles, shows a bouquet of sunflowers in a vase. In the artist's mind, both sets were linked by the name of his friend Paul Gauguin, who acquired two of the Paris versions. About eight months later, Van Gogh hoped to welcome and impress Gauguin again with Sunflowers, now part of the painted Décoration for the Yellow House that he prepared for the guestroom of his home in Arles, where Gauguin was supposed to stay. After Gauguin's departure, Van Gogh imagined the two major versions as wings of the Berceuse Triptych, and finally, he included them in his Les XX in Bruxelles exhibit.
Café Terrace at Night is an 1888 oil painting by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. It is also known as The Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum, and, when first exhibited in 1891, was entitled Coffeehouse, in the evening.
Louis Émile Anquetin was a French painter.
L'Arlésienne, L'Arlésienne : Madame Ginoux, or Portrait of Madame Ginoux is the title given to a group of six similar paintings by Vincent van Gogh, painted in Arles, November 1888, and in Saint-Rémy, February 1890. L'Arlésienne means literally "the woman from Arles".
Vincent van Gogh lived during the Impressionist era. With the development of photography, painters and artists turned to conveying the feeling and ideas behind people, places, and things rather than trying to imitate their physical forms. Impressionist artists did this by emphasizing certain hues, using vigorous brushstrokes, and paying attention to highlighting. Vincent van Gogh implemented this ideology to pursue his goal of depicting his own feelings toward and involvement with his subjects. Van Gogh's portraiture focuses on color and brushstrokes to demonstrate their inner qualities and Van Gogh's own relationship with them.
This is a chronology of the artist Vincent van Gogh. It is based as far as possible on Van Gogh's correspondence. However, it has only been possible to construct the chronology by drawing on additional sources. Most of his letters are not dated and it was only in 1973 that a sufficient dating was established by Jan Hulsker, subsequently revised by Ronald Pickvance and marginally corrected by others. Many other relevant dates in the chronology derive from the biographies of his brother Theo, his uncle and godfather Cent, his friends Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, and others.
The Night Café is an oil painting created by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh in September 1888 in Arles. Its title is inscribed lower right beneath the signature. The painting is owned by Yale University and is currently held at the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut.
Meijer Isaac de Haan was a Dutch painter. In French the name was written Meyer de Haan.
Hospital at Arles is the subject of two paintings that Vincent van Gogh made of the hospital in which he stayed in December 1888 and again in January 1889. The hospital is located in Arles in southern France. One of the paintings is of the central garden between four buildings titled Garden of the Hospital in Arles ; the other painting is of a ward within the hospital titled Ward of the Hospital in Arles. Van Gogh also painted Portrait of Dr. Félix Rey, a portrait of his physician while in the hospital.
The Letters of Vincent van Gogh is a collection of 903 surviving letters written (820) or received (83) by Vincent van Gogh. More than 650 of these were from Vincent to his brother Theo. The collection also includes letters van Gogh wrote to his sister Wil and other relatives, as well as between artists such as Paul Gauguin, Anthon van Rappard, and Émile Bernard.
Road with Cypress and Star, also known as Country Road in Provence by Night, is an 1890 oil-on-canvas painting by Dutch post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh. It is the last painting he made in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France. The painting is part of the large van Gogh collection of the Kröller-Müller Museum, located in the Hoge Veluwe National Park at Otterlo in the Netherlands.
Memory of the Garden at Etten (Ladies of Arles) is an oil painting by Vincent van Gogh. It was executed in Arles around November 1888 and is in the collection of the Hermitage Museum. It was intended as decoration for his bedroom at the Yellow House.
Houses at Auvers is an oil painting by Vincent van Gogh. It was created towards the end of May or beginning of June 1890, shortly after he had moved to Auvers-sur-Oise, a small town northwest of Paris, France.
Van Gogh's Chair is a painting created in 1888 by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. It is currently held by the National Gallery, London.
Ronald Pickvance was a British art historian. His specialty was French art of the late 19th century. Pickvance studied art history at the University of Cambridge until 1953 and then moved to the Courtauld Institute of Art in London for two years. From 1957 to 1965 he lectured for the Arts Council of Great Britain and acted as curator for the art collections of the University of London. From 1966 he taught art history at the University of Nottingham and in 1976 moved to the University of Glasgow, where he held the Richmond Chair of Fine Arts as professor from 1977 to 1984. Pickvance curated several exhibitions on Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists and published books on these subjects.
Bogomila Welsh-Ovcharov is an art historian at the University of Toronto at Mississauga and authority on the art of Vincent van Gogh. Her book Van Gogh: The Lost Arles Sketchbook, contains reproductions of sketches said to be by the artist, but the authenticity of which has been disputed.
At Eternity's Gate is a 2018 biographical drama film about the final years of painter Vincent van Gogh's life. The film dramatizes the controversial theory put forward by van Gogh biographers Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, in which they speculate that van Gogh's death was caused by manslaughter rather than suicide.
Reaper, Wheat Field with Reaper, or Wheat Field with Reaper and Sun is the title given to each of a series of three oil-on-canvas paintings by Vincent van Gogh of a man reaping a wheat field under a bright early-morning sun. To the artist, the reaper represented death and "humanity would be the wheat being reaped". However, Van Gogh did not consider the work to be sad but "almost smiling" and taking "place in broad daylight with a sun that floods everything with a light of fine gold".