It might have crossed your thoughts, whereas beholding paintings of Vincent van Gogh, that you just’d prefer to personal one yourself someday. In that case, you’ll should get in keeping with quite a lot of billionaires, and even they could never see one go up on the auction block. This may probably come as a surprise to van Gogh himself, who died destitute — and practically unknown — after an artistic profession of simply ten years. In that point, he managed to promote actually one painting, a minimum of according to certain definitions of “promote.” Van Gogh did barter paintings for meals and artwork supplies, and he did settle for commissions, startning with one from his art-dealer uncle Cor. However as for gross sales made to non-relatives by an official present, we solely know of 1: La vigne rouge.
Recognized in English as The Pink Vineyards close to Arles, or simply The Pink Vineyard, the painting depicts a landscape van Gogh got here throughout “on a late aftermidday stroll with Paul Gauguin on 28 October 1888, 5 days after his buddy’s arrival in Arles.” So writes Martin Bailey at The Artwork Informationpaper, who provides that “chooseing the grapes normally takes place in September in Provence, however the harvest appears to have been late that yr.”
To his brother Theo, Vincent described the scene thus: “A pink vineyard, completely pink like pink wine. Within the distance it turned yellow, after which a inexperienced sky with a solar, fields violet and glowing yellow right here and there after the rain wherein the setting solar was replicateed.” The artist was not, however, moved to arrange his canvas then and there; moderately, he painted the vineyard the following month, from memory.
Vincent let Theo cling the outcomeing canvas in his Paris asidement till he requested for it again in an effort to exhibit it within the annual Brussels present placed on by a gaggle referred to as Les Vingt in early 1890. The Pink Vineyards’ purchaseer was considered one of their number, a certain Anna Boch, the sister of van Gogh’s colleague in impressionism (and onetime portrait subject) Eugène Boch. Although she was no relation, Anna did pay full sticker value for the painting, and van Gogh later expressed some remorse about not giving her a “buddy’s value.” However whatever it value her, it was positively a steal compared to its value at the moment, after its purchase by a Russian collector, its revolutionary expropriation, and its lengthy Soviet suppression followed by proud exhibition at Moscow’s Pushkin State Museum of Nice Arts — which, owing to the painting’s fragility, gained’t even lend it out.
Related content:
1,500 Paintings & Drawings by Vincent van Gogh Have Been Digitized & Put On-line
Vincent Van Gogh’s The Starry Night time: Why It’s a Nice Painting in 15 Minutes
Based mostly in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His tasks embrace the Substack newsletter Books on Cities and the e book The Statemuch less Metropolis: a Stroll by Twenty first-Century Los Angeles. Follow him on the social webwork formerly generally known as Twitter at @colinmarshall.
