The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam says a portrait present in a Minnesota storage sale just isn’t an unique by the Dutch grasp.
After an vintage collector found the portray in 2016, the work was bought in 2019 by LMI Group Worldwide, a New York-based artwork authentication firm that offers with so-called “orphaned artworks,” described on its web site as “culturally and historically important works of art that have been lost to history.”
LMI Group claimed final month that “Elimar,” titled after the identify written on the bottom-right nook of the canvas, was painted by Vincent van Gogh between 1889 and 1890 throughout his yearlong keep on the Saint-Paul sanitarium in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. The group supported its declare with a 456-page analysis report citing a number of scientific checks in addition to historic and knowledge evaluation.
The report cited van Gogh’s pivot to “translations” (improvisational copies) of different artists’ work within the years main as much as his dying, noting that “Elimar” gave the impression to be based mostly on Danish artist Michael Ancher’s “Portrait of Niels Gaihede” (c. 1870s–Eighteen Eighties). The report additionally mentioned that “Elimar” is per van Gogh’s different portraiture achieved in three-quarters view, and that its subdued colours exemplify the artist’s want to return to “a palette like that of the north,” as he wrote in a letter to his brother Theo in the summertime of 1889.
A technical and materials evaluation of the portray concluded {that a} momentary egg-white varnish on the floor matched that utilized by van Gogh on completed work earlier than rolling them up and {that a} red-colored hair embedded within the paint belonged to a human male, although additional DNA testing couldn’t be carried out because of the degradation of the pattern.
The identify Elimar comes from a fictional boat boy from the 1848 novel The Two Baronesses by Hans Christian Andersen, whose writing van Gogh was mentioned to significantly get pleasure from.
An artwork authentication firm claims that van Gogh’s “Elimar” (c. 1889) relies on Michael Ancher’s “Portrait of Niels Gaihede” (c. 1870s–Eighteen Eighties)
Nonetheless, the Van Gogh Museum remained unconvinced. “Based on our previous opinion on the painting in 2019, we maintain our view that this is not an authentic painting by Vincent van Gogh,” a spokesperson instructed Hyperallergic.
The previous proprietor of the work had already consulted the museum about its authenticity years in the past, and the museum had denied attribution based mostly on {a photograph} of the portray.
LMI Group mentioned in a January 31 assertion that it stood by its findings, questioning why the museum “invested less than one working day to summarily reject the facts presented in our 456-page report without offering any explanation, let alone studying the painting directly rather than looking at it reproduced as a JPEG.”
The group added that “even the museum is fallible,” pointing to 4 alleged cases during which the establishment didn’t correctly attribute works to the artist and 10 cases during which it allegedly misattributed works to the artist. (The Van Gogh Museum has not but responded to Hyperallergic‘s request for remark about these claims.)
In a current report within the Wall Road Journal, the Van Gogh Museum instructed the paper that it receives between 200 and 500 authentication inquiries per yr, “99% of which could not be attributed to Van Gogh in our opinion.”
