KEY POINTS:
A Van Gogh vanished in Australia. In the United States, a Van Gogh appeared.
The first, a portrait attributed to the Dutch master for 70 years, was declared by experts to be the work of someone else, probably one of his contemporaries. The second, a landscape, was discovered concealed beneath another Van Gogh painting.
Head of a Man was brought to Australia in 1939 by the late newspaper publisher Keith Murdoch, father of Rupert, as part of a travelling exhibition. It became stranded on the outbreak of war, and was bought by the National Gallery of Victoria in 1949 for A$4000. It was subsequently valued, as a Van Gogh, at A$25 million.
Doubts were raised about the attribution after it was exhibited in Edinburgh last year. Critics said the work, dated 1886, was in a different style from other Van Goghs of the period.
The National Gallery sent the portrait of a bearded, curly-haired man to the Van Gogh Museum in the Netherlands. Gallery director Gerard Vaughan said experts had concluded it was painted during Van Gogh's lifetime, but not by him.
A team at the same museum, meanwhile, had been examining The Ravine, painted by Van Gogh in October 1889 and owned by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
While x-raying the canvas, they noticed that beneath it lay another painting, Wild Vegetation, a drawing of which is in the museum's collection.
Art historians had always wondered if the drawing was based on a painting, for Van Gogh often sent drawings of his works to his brother, Theo, an art dealer in Paris. He also relied on Theo to send him supplies, and would paint new compositions over old ones if the materials arrived late and he could not afford to buy his own.
In Melbourne, Vaughan put on a brave face as he announced the loss of his Van Gogh, saying: "The reattribution of paintings is part of the daily life in any major gallery."
- Independent
