`Sunset at Montmajour`: a newly discovered painting by Vincent van

‘Sunset at Montmajour’: a newly discovered
painting by Vincent van Gogh
by LOUIS VAN TILBORGH, TEIO MEEDENDORP and ODA VAN MAANEN
‘Sunset at Montmajour’: a newly discovered painting by
Vincent van Gogh
by LOUIS VAN TILBO RGH, TEIO MEEDENDORP and ODA VAN MAANEN
W HEN THE MUCH-AWAITED , revised edition of De la Faille’s catalogue raisonné of Van Gogh’s œuvre was published in 1970 it was
not to universal acclaim. In this Magazine Ronald Pickvance
spoke glumly of a ‘progress report’, and John Rewald thought
that if there was ‘a more confusing way to present a catalogue,
the editors apparently couldn’t find it’.1 But, pace the grumblers,
it did have its virtues, the most important being that ‘at least 100
paintings and drawings’ had been discovered.2 Although that was
a sizable number, it turned out that the additions to the œuvre
were far from complete, because even more works have been
rescued from oblivion since then.3 However, no matter how fascinating and important such discoveries are for a proper understanding of the œuvre, when one takes a closer look at what has
been added since De la Faille’s original book of 1928 one finds
that there have been very few real surprises. In retrospect, what
he had missed back then was not all that much: The Tarascon
coaches of 1888, some pen drawings from Arles, and one from
Saint-Rémy.4
So the words ‘absolutely sensational’ are no less than fitting for
the recent discovery of an unpublished and ambitious painting in
a private collection from ‘the zenith, the climax, the greatest
flowering of van Gogh’s decade of artistic activity’ – his Arles
period (Fig.56).5 It shows a wild, rocky area to the east of the
ruined abbey on the hill of Montmajour. There are numerous
holm (or holly) oaks, and even today the area abounds in these
distinctively Mediterranean trees with their holly-shaped leaves
and twisted trunks (Fig.54).6 At top left are the ruins bathed in
the late afternoon sun, which have made it possible to pin down
the precise spot and Van Gogh’s orientation. He was looking
west on a plateau about a kilometre from Montmajour, just south
of the road that winds its way to Fontvieille (Fig.57).7 Through
the bushes on the right is a glimpse of the farmland that stretches
north-west to the Rhône.
Van Gogh had realised the potential of this untouched area
around Montmajour as a subject almost as soon as he arrived in
Arles in early 1888, but because it was too cold and windy at the
time he had put off recording the ‘beautiful things’ there.8 It was
not until the end of May that he began to explore the area in
drawings (Figs.55 and 71), but he seems to have been also thinking of capturing some of the subjects in oils. Possibly inspired by
Theo’s recent description of Monet’s Under the pines: evening
(Fig.58), he thought that a sunset at this spot, with the orange-
This article was translated from the Dutch by Michael Hoyle. All the data on the pigments in Sunset at Montmajour are from the technical report by Muriel Geldof, Luc
Megens and Maarten van Bommel of the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE), project number 2012-014 (hereafter RCE report). Unless otherwise
stated, all the samples in this article were prepared in cross-section and examined with
the light microscope and Scanning Electron Microscope with Energy Dispersive Xray Analysis (SEM-EDX) by Muriel Geldof. The indication of pigments with handheld X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometry (XRF) was performed by Luc Megens, and
analyses with High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) by Maarten van
Bommel. Don H. Johnson and Robert G. Erdmann were instrumental in analysing
the types of canvas used for Sunset at Montmajour and The rocks in the framework of
the Thread Count Automation Project (TCAP). The information about the history
of the painting and Christian Nicolai Mustad was supplied by the former owner, who
wishes to remain anonymous, as do the present owners. Many thanks to David Bomford and Helga Aurisch of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, who gave us the
opportunity to examine The rocks, and to Melissa Gardner for the identification of the
pigments in the ground of that painting using polarised light microscopy (PLM) of
dispersed pigment samples and XRF. We are also grateful to Tina Tan and Maureen
Eck for their kind help with the photography and photomicrographs of The rocks; to
Petra Pettersen, Munch Museum, Oslo, Turid Aakhus and Nils Messel, both of the
Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo, for providing us with information on Mustad as a collector.
Our thanks, too, to Walter Feilchenfeldt, Sjraar van Heugten, Evert van Uitert, and
our colleagues in the Van Gogh Museum: Monique Hageman, Ella Hendriks, Leo
Jansen, Hans Luijten and Marije Vellekoop.
1 J.-B. de la Faille: The works of Vincent van Gogh. His paintings and drawings, Amsterdam 1970 (hereafter the catalogue numbers in this book are referred to as F followed
by a number); the quotations are from R. Pickvance: ‘The new De la Faille’, THE
BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 115 (1973), p.175, and J. Rewald: Post-Impressionism. From
Van Gogh to Gauguin, New York 1978, p.538.
2 Pickvance, op. cit. (note 1), p.175, to which he added that it was ‘difficult not to
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54. Holm oaks near Aureille, just south of the Alpilles. (Photograph 2013).
55. La Bruyère, by Vincent van Gogh. 1888. Pencil, reed pen in purple ink (now
brown in most places), 31.3 by 48.1 cm. (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Vincent
van Gogh Foundation).
A NEWLY DISCOVERED PAINTING BY VAN GOGH
56. Sunset at Montmajour, by Vincent van Gogh. 1888. Canvas, 93.3 by 73.3 cm. (Private collection).
yellow rays that are so characteristic of the south of France,
would make a superb picture. ‘I saw a red sunset that sent its rays
into the trunks and foliage of pines rooted in a mass of rocks,
colouring the trunks and foliage a fiery orange while other pines
in the further distance stood out in Prussian blue against a soft
blue-green sky – cerulean. So it’s the effect of that Claude
Monet. It was superb. The white sand and the seams of white
rocks under the trees took on blue tints’.9
When Van Gogh returned to the site at the beginning of July,
evidently planning to crown his reconnaissances on paper with
ambitious paintings, it was perhaps no coincidence that his first
subject was just such a fiery sunset. ‘Yesterday, at sunset’, he
wrote to Theo on 5th July, ‘I was on a stony heath where very
small, twisted oaks grow, in the background a ruin on the hill,
and wheatfields in the valley. It was romantic, it couldn’t be
more so, à la Monticelli, the sun was pouring its very yellow rays
be more approximate, let alone precise’, for reasons that emerged in his critical
review.
3 This is not the place to list them in full, but see J. Hulsker: The new complete Van
Gogh: paintings, drawings, sketches, Amsterdam and Philadelphia 1996 (hereafter cited
as JH), Addenda, pp.484–86; M. Bailey: ‘Real discoveries’, The Art Newspaper
(July–August 1997), pp.24–25; M. Vellekoop: ‘A newly discovered drawing by Van
Gogh’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 150 (2008), pp.106–09; L. van Tilborgh and E.
Hendriks: ‘Dirk Hannema and the rediscovery of a painting by Vincent van Gogh’,
THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 152 (2010), pp.393–405; and T. Meedendorp: ‘Van
Gogh in training: the idiosyncratic path to artistry’, in M. Vellekoop et al., eds.: Van
Gogh’s studio practice, New Haven and London 2013, pp.40 and 41.
4 F 478a, F 1482a, F 1507a, F 1518a, F 1525a, F-JH Add. 3 and F 1728.
5 Which is how Ronald Pickvance summarised the traditional view of this period
in the Van Gogh literature; see his exh. cat. Van Gogh in Arles, New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art) 1986, p.11.
6
The Latin name is Coccifera ilex, and we cannot resist mentioning that the identification was made on the basis of acorns gathered from the same spot. With thanks to
Hans den Nijs of the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, University
of Amsterdam.
7 This was discovered on a visit to the location. Far more of the north front of the
ruins is visible from a position north of the road, and the distance between the tower
on the left and the rectangular structure behind it is far greater than in the painting.
The ruins are seen at more of an acute angle from a spot south of the road, with the
result that those two sections move closer together. Van Gogh must have been close
to the road, but it is not visible in the picture because he was standing on a slightly
elevated plateau.
8 L. Jansen, H. Luijten and N. Bakker: Vincent van Gogh. The letters, The Hague
2009, which are constantly being updated at www.vangoghletters.org (hereafter cited
as Letters), no.583.
9 Letters, no.615.
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A NEWLY DISCOVERED PAINTING BY VAN GOGH
57. Detail from the Carte de l’état-major de France 1820–66. (Institut national de
l’information géographique et forestière (IGN), France).
over the bushes and the ground, absolutely a shower of gold. And
all the lines were beautiful, the whole scene had a charming
nobility. You wouldn’t have been at all surprised to see knights
and ladies suddenly appear, returning from hunting with hawks,
or to hear the voice of an old Provençal troubadour. The fields
seemed purple, the distances blue. And I brought back a study of
it too, but it was well below what I’d wished to do’.10
Up until now that study has been associated with The rocks, a
work related to Monticelli’s style and subject-matter that is now
in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Figs.60 and 59).11 However, that scene of a tree in the rocky area around Montmajour
does not match Van Gogh’s description. The missing elements
are the abbey ruins, the wheatfields in the valley, the many small,
twisted oaks, and the ‘very yellow rays over the bushes and the
ground’, and since they are all present in Sunset at Montmajour this
must be the study that Van Gogh was referring to. On top of that,
he said that the result was ‘well below what I’d wished to do’,
and that does not fit The rocks either, which he rated highly, as
we know from the pen drawing that he made after it and sent to
Emile Bernard.12
In the spring Van Gogh had ruthlessly destroyed works that he
felt to be below par,13 but Sunset at Montmajour escaped that fate.
It was one of the paintings from the previous period that his
friend Paul-Eugène Milliet took to Theo in Paris in mid-August.
Van Gogh liked the subjects but felt that the execution was not
always quite up to the mark, with Sunset at Montmajour being the
most striking example. ‘The roll that he’ll bring you contains 36
studies; among them there are many with which I’m desperately dissatisfied, and which I’m sending you anyway because it
will still give you a vague idea of some really fine subjects in the
countryside. For example, there’s a quick sketch I made of myself
laden with boxes, sticks, a canvas, on the sunny Tarascon road;
there’s a view of the Rhône, in which the sky and the water are
the colour of absinthe, with a blue bridge and black figures of
ruffians; there’s the sower, a washing-place and still others, not at
all successful and unfinished, especially a large landscape with brushwood’ (emphasis added).14 It had always been uncertain which
that last picture was,15 but the newly discovered work now clears
up that problem.
Sunset at Montmajour was Van Gogh’s third painting after The
harvest of early June on the large ‘Portrait’ 30 size canvas (92 by
73 cm.),16 which he had rarely used before, so he evidently had
high hopes for the subject. It is a commercial, ready-primed canvas that matches the type he used a week later for The rocks, as the
technical examination revealed.17 Almost all the pigments are the
ones he habitually had on his palette at this time.18 A typical one
is the cobalt blue, which is of the type he began to use from the
summer of 1887 onwards.19
Van Gogh’s method is clearly visible in both the structuring
and detailing of the scene, which seems to have been executed in
10
13
Letters, no.636.
This was first suggested in J. Hulsker: Van Gogh door Van Gogh. De brieven als commentaar op zijn werk, Amsterdam 1973, p.139. Pickvance, op. cit. (note 5), p.118, then
believed that this was ‘almost certainly’ correct, whereupon it was adopted unconditionally in C. Ives: exh. cat. Vincent van Gogh. The drawings, Amsterdam (Van Gogh
Museum) and New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art) 2005, p.237; and Letters,
no.636, note 3.
12 Van Gogh sent the drawing to Bernard on 15th or 20th July (F 1554; Letters,
nos.641, note 1, and 643, note 1), and it seems that The rocks was made shortly before.
The Houston picture was not only associated with his letter of 5th July, but also with
his letter of around 13th July, in which he spoke of his very last attempt to paint
rather than draw during the mistral (Letters, no.639, note 6), and the rapid, almost
stenographic brushwork seems to bear that out. It is known from letter no.610 that
Van Gogh had seen one of Monticelli’s paintings of the same subject: ‘You remember that fine landscape by Monticelli that we saw at Delarebeyrette’s, of a tree on
some rocks against a sunset’.
11
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58. Under the pines: evening, by Claude Monet. 1888. Canvas, 73 by 92.1 cm.
(Philadelphia Museum of Art).
See Letters, no.606, note 3.
Letters, no.660.
15 Letters, no.660, note 6: ‘There is no known painting that fits this description’. For
the other works, see note 52 below.
16 Although Van Gogh must have occasionally used a size 30 canvas in April and May
1888, none of those works has survived (see Letters, nos.602 and 606, note 3), so the
earliest extant pictures in that format date from June and are, in chronological order,
F 412, F 425 and F 465. The stretcher of Sunset at Montmajour is not the original working frame, because a narrow strip of ground of 0.3 to 1 cm. wide can be seen around
the edges on the picture side, which could indicate that the visible area was enlarged
at some stage.
17 In the framework of the Thread Count Automation Project – see L. van Tilborgh
et al.: ‘Weave matching and dating of Van Gogh’s painting: an interdisciplinary
approach’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 154 (2012), pp.112–22 – automatic thread
counts were made from high-resolution digital scans of X-radiographs covering the
whole picture area, which for Sunset at Montmajour resulted in an average horizontal
14
A NEWLY DISCOVERED PAINTING BY VAN GOGH
59. Tree on a rock at
Ganagobie, by
Adolphe Monticelli.
After 1875. Panel,
44.8 by 34.8 cm.
(Tanimoto Hiroaki
Collection, Japan).
60. The rocks, by Vincent van Gogh. 1888. Canvas, 55 by 65.7 cm. (Museum of
Fine Arts, Houston, gift of Audrey Jones Beck).
three stages. He began with an initial lay-in of the composition
in quite a bold bluish green made up of viridian, emerald green
and a little cobalt blue (Fig.62), and this use of a bright underlayer is known from other paintings of his.20 The scene was then
worked up alla prima almost in one go, with the third stage being
completed in the studio. As usual this involved adding small
accents to the touch-dry paint, ‘to adjust the workmanship a little, to harmonize the brushstrokes’,21 to quote Van Gogh’s own
words about his standard practice at the end of the painting
process (Figs.63 and 64).
Although there are of course differences in colour because of
the subjects depicted, the palette of Sunset at Montmajour is very
similar to that of Wheatfield (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam)
and Newly mown lawn with a weeping tree (private collection) of
mid-June and early July respectively. Characteristic details
include the liver colour of the clouds, and the ‘vert véronèse’ bluegreen of the sky, which is identical to that in many other landscapes from that summer in Arles.22 The types of discolouration
are also typical of Van Gogh’s work. At the bottom edge, for
instance, there is a red brushstroke that has turned a greyish purple (Fig.65), and many of the greys elsewhere, in the trunks of
61. The public garden (‘The poet’s garden’), by Vincent van Gogh. 1888. Canvas, 73 by
91 cm. (Art Institute of Chicago, Mr and Mrs Lewis Larned Coburn Memorial
Collection).
thread density of 15.9 threads per cm. (weft) and an average vertical thread density of
17.6 threads per cm. (warp), and for The rocks in an average horizontal thread density of 17.6 threads per cm. (warp) and an average vertical thread density of 15.9 threads
per cm. (weft). A sample of the ground of Sunset at Montmajour shows two layers containing lead white, calcium carbonate, barium sulphate, probably lithopone and some
yellow ochre. The upper layer contains more lead white and less calcium carbonate
than the lower one. A sample from the ground of The rocks showed a similar composition and build-up of two layers (RCE report). Initial pigment analyses were performed by Melissa Gardner (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston).
18 Pigments indicated with handheld XRF and confirmed by SEM-EDX (in italics)
or HPLC (italic and underlined): lead white, zinc white, emerald green, viridian, cobalt
blue, ultramarine, Prussian blue, lead chromate, yellow ochre, vermilion, a little barium sulphate, a little zinc yellow (?), calcium sulphate (probably filler), an organic red pigment
(redwood) on a substrate containing tin and possibly aluminium, an organic red pigment
(cochineal) on a substrate containing tin and calcium and (probably) starch particles (Ø c. 5 µm)
(RCE report). As far as we know these types of organic red pigment have not previ-
ously been identified in paintings by Van Gogh from his Arles period, but there is a
lack of comparative material owing to the limited analyses of other paintings from the
period. See also M. Geldof et al.: ‘Van Gogh’s palette in Arles, Saint-Rémy and
Auvers-sur-Oise’, in Vellekoop et al., op. cit. (note 3), pp.238–55.
19 Semi-quantitative analysis on the cross section showed that the amount of nickel
is relatively low in the cobalt blue used for Sunset at Montmajour (average weight percentage nickel to cobalt of 2.7 x 10-2), and furthermore the pigment contains a little
phosphorus (RCE report). For the use of this type of cobalt blue in Van Gogh’s postParis period, which probably corresponds to the paint sold by Tasset et l’Hôte, see
M. Geldof and L. Steyn: ‘Van Gogh’s cobalt blue’, in Vellekoop et al., op. cit. (note
3), pp.256–67.
20 See, for example, Van Tilborgh and Hendriks, op. cit. (note 3), p.402.
21 Letters, no.635.
22 Analyses with XRF indicated that zinc white, emerald green, a little cobalt blue and
a little viridian were used for this paint (RCE report). For the clouds see F 261 and F 575,
and for skies containing Veronese green, see F 411, F 428, F 472, F 428, F 429 and F 430.
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A NEWLY DISCOVERED PAINTING BY VAN GOGH
the holly oaks for instance, were originally redder or more
purple, while the rocks in the foreground may have been
more purplish. In addition, much of the chrome yellow has darkened, most noticeably in a brushstroke of which part has broken
off (Fig.66).23
Van Gogh’s hand can be recognised in the diversity of the
brushstrokes and the creaminess of the paint, as well as in the
rapidity and liveliness with which it was applied. There are many
characteristic details. For instance, the gaily brushed zigzagging
strokes for the tall tree that almost reaches the top of the picture,
the straight strokes for the smaller bushes and tussocks, and the
sinuously rendered trunks of the holly oaks are also found in The
rocks (compare Figs.56 and 60), while the short strokes for the
leaves of the trees on the horizon are almost identical to those in
The public garden (‘The poet’s garden’) (Fig.61). And as usual, Van
Gogh used one of his broadest brushes for the sky.
In the weeks leading up to this painting Van Gogh had already
tried to adapt his style to the rather uncomfortable conditions
created by high winds, and in order to record the fleeting effect
of a sunset he was now ‘forced to lay the paint on thickly, à la
Monticelli’, to take a later quotation out of context.24 The paint
is indeed very impastoed, particularly in the crowns of the holm
oaks, and although this is more typical of his later work from
Saint-Rémy, he did start to experiment with it in 1888. This
makes Sunset at Montmajour a continuation, as it were, of Boats
at sea at Saintes-Maries (Pushkin Museum, Moscow), and a precursor of a picture such as The green vineyard (Kröller-Müller
Museum, Otterlo).
There are several impressions of a canvas structure in the high,
flattened impasto, particularly on the right, and this is another
familiar feature in Van Gogh’s paintings. In this period he would
take his canvases from their strainers, stack them on top of each
other and then roll them up and send them to Theo.25 This
explains not only the impressions left by a canvas in the impasto
but presumably also the presence of tiny traces of brown-red and
yellow paint on the back of the unlined canvas.
Although Sunset at Montmajour vanished from sight for over a
century it transpires that it does have a traceable history, and it is
possible to offer an explanation for its long absence from the literature. Van Gogh described it himself in two letters of 1888, and
its next documentary sign of life comes only two years later,
when it was listed as ‘soleil couchant à Arles 30’ under number 180
in the Catalogue des œuvres de Vincent van Gogh in Theo’s collection that Andries Bonger drew up in 1890.26 The subject and size
of the picture match that description, but the clinching piece of
evidence is simply that the number 180 is written on the back
of the canvas (Fig.67). The handwriting resembles that on Wheatfield with setting sun, now in the Kunstmuseum, Winterthur
(Fig.68), which is also marked with a Bonger number.27 It is numbered 100 on the list and was given the title ‘Arles (Soleil couchant)
30’, which makes it likely that both numbers, which were probably written by packers, were added to prevent confusion between
the two works when they were sent off to exhibitions.28
Confirmation that Theo’s widow, Jo van Gogh-Bonger, did
indeed send the painting out into the world comes from other
references. She lent it for the exhibition of Van Gogh’s works in
the Panorama building in Amsterdam in 1892–93, which was
curated by the artist Richard Roland Holst. A reviewer of that
large show mentioned a painting of ‘dry stony ground with thin
trees’, which can hardly be a reference to anything other than
Sunset at Montmajour.29 The picture was also in a selling exhibition in March 1901 mounted by an artists’ society in Utrecht
called Voor de Kunst, a fact we know from a list that Jo van
Gogh-Bonger made of works she had lent, where it appears
under its Bonger number of 180 but with the not entirely incomprehensible title of ‘autumn landscape’.30
Although it is not documented, Sunset at Montmajour changed
hands shortly afterwards. The family archive contains no further
documents relating to number 180, and the fact that Jo sold it can
be deduced from Meier-Graefe’s book on modern art of 1904, in
which he noted that the French merchant collector Maurice
Fabre owned seven Van Goghs, including ‘Groupe d’arbres avec
nuages mouvementés’ (‘Group of trees with scudding clouds’).31
Until now no one knew which painting that was,32 but since that
title is very acceptable as a description of Sunset at Montmajour,
with its lively sky and striking group of trees, this must be it.
Turning to the question of when Fabre could have acquired it
from Jo van Gogh-Bonger’s collection, the only possible occasion could have been a small selling exhibition held in April and
May 1901 in the Paris apartment of the art critic and dealer Julien
Leclercq.33 Leclercq had approached Theo’s widow in April and
asked her to send five or six paintings, including two or three
landscapes of her own choice, and Sunset at Montmajour was
almost certainly one of them.34 It must just have returned from
its outing to Utrecht, so sending it straight on would have been
a simple option.35
Fabre had several other pictures by Van Gogh which he
gradually disposed of, the last one probably around 1908.36
However, there is no record anywhere of the sale of Sunset at
Montmajour. It vanished without trace after the mention in
23
many of them have since been lined, any such inscriptions are now hidden from sight.
29 J.W. van Dijckveldt: ‘Tentoonstelling Vincent van Gogh’, Amsterdammer (1st
January 1893): ‘. . . dorre steengronden met schraalharde boomen’.
30 Lijst van de schilderijen in ‘Voor de Kunst’ Utrecht, no.17, which was offered for sale
at 900 guilders (Utrecht, Utrechts Archief, Archief Vereeniging voor de Kunst,
no.777-2: 7). It was described in a review by ‘Gio.’: ‘Vincent van Gogh’, Algemeen
Handelsblad (19th March 1901), which is included in Andries Bonger’s scrapbook
(Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum Library, BVG 3117, p.51): ‘Toch is er veel moois in
[. . .] een sterk verlicht, als verguld herfstlandschap’ (‘But much in it is beautiful [. . .] a
brightly lit autumn landscape, as if gilded’).
31 J. Meier-Graefe: Entwicklungsgeschichte der modernen Kunst: vergleichende Betrachtung
der Bildenden Künste, als Beitrag zu einer neuen Aesthetik, Stuttgart 1904, I, p.120, note 1.
32 On this, see Feilchenfeldt, op. cit. (note 26), p.299. See note 36 below for the works
in Fabre’s collection.
33 Fabre and Leclercq knew each other, for the former lent six works to the Van
Gogh exhibition at Bernheim-Jeune that Leclercq organised in March 1901; see exh.
For discolourations of chrome yellow in paintings by Van Gogh, see L. Monico et
al.: ‘The degradation process of lead chromate in paintings by Vincent van Gogh
studied by means of Synchrotron X-ray Spectromicroscopy and related methods’,
Analytical Chemistry 83/4 (2011), pp.1224–31.
24 Letters, no.689.
25 It is known from Letters, no.660, that Sunset at Montmajour was rolled up with other
works for dispatch.
26 Until now it was not known which picture this was; see W. Feilchenfeldt: Vincent
van Gogh. Die Gemälde 1886–1890. Händler, Sammler, Ausstellungen. Frühe Provenienzen, Wädenswill 2009, p.288. The number 30 is an identification of the format
(‘Portrait’ 30 = 92 by 73 cm.).
27 E. Hendriks: ‘Condition report F465’, 15th January 2008, written jointly with Jan
Jedlicka (former paintings conservator at the Kunstmuseum, Winterthur); on file at
the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.
28 There must be more of these numbers on the back of paintings by Van Gogh (F
730, for instance, has Bonger number 221, and F357 has number 30), but because
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62. Photomicrograph of Fig.56
showing the layin of the composition with
diluted washes
of green paint.
63. Photomicrograph of Fig.56
showing the wetin-wet mixing of
the green paint
with the paint of
the sky and final
touches of green
added onto the
touch-dry paint.
64. Photomicrograph of Fig.60
showing similar
wet-in-wet
mixing of the
green paint with
the paint of the
sky and final
touches of green
added onto the
touch-dry paint.
(Photograph
Museum of Fine
Arts, Houston).
65. Photomicrograph of Fig.56
showing the discolouration of the
red lake paint in an
abraded area.
66. Photomicrograph of Fig.56
showing the
discolouration
of the chrome
yellow paint,
where part of
the impasto has
broken off,
slightly
enhanced by
the absence of
varnish.
Meier-Graefe’s book, and only reappeared in 1970 in the
estate of Christian Nicolai Mustad (1878–1970), a Norwegian
industrialist in Oslo who, with his four brothers, joined his father
as co-owner of the company O. Mustad & Søn in 1905. According to the family, he started collecting contemporary art
three years later, mainly work by Edvard Munch, but he also had
fine pictures by Van Gogh, Cézanne, Pissarro and Degas (Figs.69
and 70).37
The family has no documents recording these purchases, but
interestingly they do say that Mustad bought Sunset at Montmajour at an early date, possibly even in 1908. If true, some considerable time passed before he bought his second work by a French
master – in 1918. That was Cézanne’s Seated peasant, which is
cat. Exposition d’œuvres de Vincent van Gogh, Paris (Galerie Bernheim-Jeune) 1901,
nos.24–29.
34 Leclercq promised to return them by mid-May, when he was going abroad (letter
to Jo Bonger, 15th April 1901; Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum Archive,
no.B4142V/1984), but the correspondence stops there and Leclercq died suddenly in
October. For Leclercq and his communications with Theo’s widow, see M. Supinen:
‘Julien Leclercq: a champion of the unknown Vincent van Gogh’, Jong Holland 6
(1990), pp.5–14.
35 In an earlier letter Leclercq had asked about the exhibition catalogue, which did
not in fact exist; Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum Archive, no.B4140V/1984.
36 Between c.1899 and 1908 Fabre acquired and sold the following paintings by Van
Gogh: F 317, F 419, F 434, F 445, F 486, F 587, F 613, F 664, F 669, F 750 and F
800; see Feilchenfeldt, op. cit. (note 26). Feilchenfeldt did not associate F 750 and F
800 with Fabre, but in January 1908 they were both hanging in an exhibition in
Galerie Druet, with Fabre identified as the owner; see exh. cat. Vincent van Gogh,
Paris (Galerie Druet) 1908, nos.5 (‘Village au ravin’; F 750) and 9 (‘Paysage à Auvers’;
F 800). For the latter work, see also Meier-Graefe, op. cit. (note 31), p.120, note 1,
although he spoke of ‘Vue d’Auvers’. F 750 can be traced back to Jo’s collection –
see Feilchenfeldt, op. cit. (note 26), p.250 – and we believe that Fabre bought it at
the same exhibition in Leclercq’s apartment. Feilchenfeldt believed that Harry Graf
Kessler was the next owner after Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, and that this German
collector also acquired F 800, but that seems unlikely. In May 1908, both works and
Fabre’s F 613 were auctioned in Paris; sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 16th May 1908, lots
24–26.
37 Mustad eventually owned thirty-one paintings by Munch; see G. Woll: Edvard
Munch. Complete paintings. Catalogue raisonné, New York 2009, nos.60, 80, 93, 94,
104, 113, 115, 117, 158, 226, 266, 284, 324, 339, 340, 358, 369, 381, 388, 469, 510,
514, 698, 1083, 1126, 1129, 1195, 1296, 1299, 1341 and 1361. His earliest documented purchases are nos.369 and 381. In 1937 Mustad donated seven Munchs to the
Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo, and on his death in 1970 it turned out that he had bequeathed
a further ten to the Museum; see S. Willoch: Edvard Munch. Charlotte og Christian
Mustads gave, Oslo 1970.
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A NEWLY DISCOVERED PAINTING BY VAN GOGH
68. Detail in
transmitted light
of the number
‘100’ from the
Bonger list
inscribed on the
reverse of Sunset:
wheatfield near
Arles, by Vincent
van Gogh. 1888.
Canvas, 74 by 93
cm. (Kunstmuseum,Winterthur).
67. Reverse of Fig.56 showing the number ‘180’ from the Bonger list inscribed on
the canvas.
now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and it was
only then that he really acquired a taste for modern foreign art.38
Van Gogh’s Street in Saintes-Maries and Park in Asnières then followed, probably in the early 1920s, while pictures by Renoir and
Sisley were acquired before 1922, and Degas’s A woman ironing,
which is now in the Neue Pinakothek, Munich, was bought
before 1929.39
According to the family’s recollection, Mustad and his wife
were advised by Jens Thiis (1870–1942), who in 1908 was
appointed Director of the Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo.40 Thiis was a
fan not only of Munch but also of modern French art, as
demonstrated by his purchases for the Museum of Van Gogh’s
Self-portrait and Cézanne’s Still life in 1910, so it is very possible
that the young collector asked the advice of this key figure in the
local art world when he decided to start buying modern art from
beyond Norway.41 Thiis is known to have visited Paris in 1908
and 1910, and it may have been after one of those trips that he
advised Mustad to buy Sunset at Montmajour, possibly because of
its affinity with View of Arles from Montmajour (Fig.71), which his
Museum had acquired in 1905.42
Nevertheless, it is still incomprehensible how what seems to
have been the first picture by Van Gogh to enter a private Norwegian collection managed to escape mention in the literature
38
Nils Messel, chief curator of the Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo, has told us that to the best
of his knowledge Mustad did not have any works by leading masters before the First
World War. What is interesting, and perhaps significant (see the main text), is that
when he again wanted to buy modern French art, he used Walter Halvorsen as his
adviser, on whom see H. Spurling: The unknown Matisse. A life of Henri Matisse, London 1998, II, pp.190, 193, 195 and 218, and Halvorsen’s letter of 18th May 1966 to
Mustad’s personal secretary (private collection).
39 F 315 and F 420 are two works by Van Gogh that Mustad seems to have bought
from the Danish collector Christian Tetzen-Lund in the early 1920s; see K. Monrad:
‘The merchant with the sharp eye and unlimited ambition’, in idem, ed.: exh. cat.
Henri Matisse. Four great collectors, Copenhagen (Statens Museum for Kunst) 1999,
pp.137–55. Never before, incidentally, has F 420 been associated with Tetzen-Lund.
In 1917 he lent it to the exhibition Fransk Konst. Fran 1800-Talet at the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, where it was no.60: ‘Hus I Saintes Maries. – Les mas de Saintes
Maries, Tetzen Lunds samling’. In 1922 Mustad offered Thannhauser works by
‘Renoir, Sisley, Van Gogh’ (Cologne, Zentral Archiv des Internationalen Kunsthandels E.V. ZADIK, Galerie Thannhauser Kundelkartei [client card], Berlin, M,
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on Van Gogh for so long, even if one assumes that Mustad was
reluctant to lend works to exhibitions. However, the family have
an explanation for this. According to a story handed down in the
family, the French ambassador to Sweden visited Mustad soon
after he had bought the picture and suggested that it was a fake,
or had been wrongly attributed. The collector promptly banished
it to the attic. He evidently attached more importance to that
verdict than to his adviser’s eye, and was clearly very annoyed,
because the banishment was permanent; he never wanted to see
the landscape again, and later photographs of his home confirm
that it did not hang among his other pictures (Figs.69 and 70).
To put all this into historical perspective: expressing doubts
about what later turned out to be perfectly genuine works by Van
Gogh was not unknown around 1910. The art world was jittery
at the time, possibly because of a rise in the number of forgeries
in circulation, and as a result owners felt uncertain. For example,
the Swiss collector Fritz Meyer-Fierz started to ask Jo van GoghBonger for certificates of authenticity two years after buying four
Van Goghs from her.43 He did not want to run the slightest risk,
because art dealers and connoisseurs were now bombarding each
other with contradictory opinions. For example, in 1912 Bernheim-Jeune started questioning the authenticity of Van Gogh’s
Fishing boats on the beach at Saintes-Maries,44 and when one of the
versions of the intriguing portrait of Mme Ginoux changed hands
in 1914 the art dealer Perls later recalled that there had been
‘rumours, especially among artists’,45 one of whom was the German painter and Matisse pupil Hans Purrmann.46
The fact that Mustad attached so much weight to his guest’s
opinion would seem to mean that the ambassador was an authority qualified to pass judgment. That cannot have been the case,47
so we must allow for the possibility that the story became
1927–37, Sign. A077_XIX_0195_001), although no transaction took place, but he
must already have had one or both of the works from Tetzen-Lund’s collection,
because he would not have offered Sunset at Montmajour for sale, for reasons that will
become clear below. The Degas and the Cézanne were said to be in Mustad’s possession in 1929; see P. Jamot: ‘L’Art français en Norvège, galerie nationale d’Oslo et
collections particulières’, La Renaissance 12/2 (1929), pp.84 and 95.
40 See O. Mæhle: Jens Thiis. En kunstens forkjemper, Oslo 1970; and N. Messel:
‘French paintings on Norwegian soil’, in T. Gunnarsson et al.: exh. cat. Impressionism
and the north. Late 19th-century French avant-garde art and the art in the Nordic countries
1870–1920, Oslo (Nasjonalmuseet) and Copenhagen (Statens Museum for Kunst)
2002–03, pp.231–40; and H. Larsson: Flames of the south. On the introduction of Vincent
van Gogh to Sweden, Eslöv 1996, passim.
41 Doubt was later cast on the authenticity of the self-portrait F 528; for a discussion
of this, see M.I. Lange: ‘The provenance of Vincent van Gogh’s “Self-portrait” in
Oslo’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 148 (2006), pp.113–16.
42 For the date of purchase, see Ives, op. cit. (note 11), p.162.
43 They were F 459, F 625, F 766 and F 785; see also W. Feilchenfeld and R. Dorn:
A NEWLY DISCOVERED PAINTING BY VAN GOGH
69. Christian Nicolai Mustad’s house, Oslo. Photograph 1960s. (Private collection).
70. Christian Nicolai Mustad’s house, Oslo. Photograph 1960s. (Private collection).
distorted on its way down from one generation to the next. That
is not inconceivable, because if one substitutes the Norwegian
consul in Paris for the French ambassador in Sweden, then
understanding begins to dawn. Since 1906 the consul had been
the entrepreneur Auguste Pellerin (1853–1929) who, as a major
collector of late nineteenth-century art, was certainly regarded as
an authority.48 He owned many works by Cézanne, and by Van
Gogh too; he was also the owner of Astra Margarine, which was
in direct competition in Norway with the Mustad family factory.
If such a foreign competitor who was also very knowledgeable
about art sowed doubts about the authenticity of Sunset at Montmajour, then one can well understand that Mustad would certainly have been upset and that despite the status and reliability
of his own adviser he would have wanted to forget his foray into
buying modern French art as soon as possible, and as a result did
not even take the trouble to discover whether his guest’s view
was shared by others.
Most of Mustad’s collection was appraised for sale after his
death in 1970, and the heirs also showed the exile from the attic
to the art dealer Daniel Wildenstein. He ‘believed it was false’
and suggested that ‘it could maybe have been made by a German painter’.49 Later owners also took the trouble to check
whether there was any truth in the old attribution to Van
Gogh. In 1991 they contacted the Van Gogh Museum and,
although the picture was felt to be interesting, it was eventually decided that it was not by Van Gogh.50 That may be a
painful admission, given that the same Museum is now attributing it to Van Gogh, but that is not incomprehensible, and nor
was the initial rejection.
In Bonger’s inventory, Sunset at Montmajour is described as a
work from Arles, something that would have been known to the
later owners, up to and including Mustad, but it seems as if none
of them knew the exact location. Not one of the descriptions
refers to the only specifically topographical element in the scene:
Montmajour Abbey. It is certainly not easy to recognise (there is
no other work by Van Gogh in which it is so small and seen from
the west), and after doubts had been expressed about the work’s
authenticity the puzzle about the subject would have lent added
weight to its rejection. It is telling that, according to the story
handed down in the family, Wildenstein accompanied his suggestion about a German artist with the observation that the
building was a castle rather than a ruined abbey.
Admittedly, recognition of a subject should have no influence
on the assessment of a style, but psychologically it is a tour de
force to arrive at an attribution if you cannot really identify the
scene.51 On top of that, despite the many stylistic affinities with
‘Genuine or fake? – on the history and problems of Van Gogh connoisseurship’, in
T. Kōdera and Y. Rosenberg: The mythology of Vincent van Gogh, Tokyo, Amsterdam
and Philadelphia 1993, p.266; and J.F. Heijbroek and E.L. Wouthuysen: Kunst, kennis en commercie. De kunsthandelaar J.H. de Bois 1878–1946, Amsterdam and Antwerp
1993, p.31.
44 F 1429; and Heijbroek and Wouthuysen, op. cit. (note 43), pp.39–40. The Dutch
connoisseur Bremmer expressed his doubts about F 688 in 1910, after Mrs KröllerMüller bought it from Cassirer, to which the German dealer rightly reacted in a letter to Jo van Gogh-Bonger by asking ‘Ist der Herr verrückt geworden?’ (‘Has the
gentleman gone mad?’); see Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum letter archive,
B4075V/1989, cited in J. ten Berge et al.: The paintings of Vincent van Gogh in the
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo 2003, p.390.
45 F 489, noted in H. Perls: Warum ist Kamilla schön? Von Kunst, Künstler und Kunsthandel, Munich 1962, p.119: ‘. . . munkelten besonders die Mahler’.
46 Purrmann had earlier doubted the authenticity of both F 520 and F 814; see ibid.,
pp.119–20; for him as a Matisse pupil, see Spurling, op. cit. (note 38), pp.14–15.
47 The French ambassadors to Sweden in this period were Henri Allizé (1907–09),
Jules-Albert Defrance (1909–10) and Napoléon-Eugène-Emile Thiébault (1910–18).
With thanks to the French embassy in Stockholm and François Fensterbank of the
Centre des Archives Diplomatiques de Nantes.
48 Pellerin made a financial contribution towards the purchase of Cézanne’s Still life
for Oslo’s Nasjonalmuseet in 1910; see Messel, op. cit. (note 40), p.232. It is also useful to know that he was a friend of Matisse – see Spurling, op. cit. (note 38), p.193 –
and may have been aware of the doubts of the latter’s pupils about the authenticity
of some of Van Gogh’s works (see note 46 above).
49 Letter from the owner to the Van Gogh Museum, 6th and 8th November 1991
(Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum Archive).
50 Letters to the then owner of 18th, 26th and 28th November 1991 and, after having seen the work, in a letter of 18th December 1991 (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum Archive): ‘we think that the picture in question is not an authentic Van Gogh’.
51 The spot was recognised in 2011 by an artist friend of the former owner who had
grown up in Arles. He then pointed out the similarity of the painting to the description in letter 636, whereupon the Van Gogh Museum was again asked to give its
verdict.
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71. View of Arles from Montmajour, by Vincent van Gogh. 1888. Reed and quill
pen and ink over graphite on paper, 59.5 by 70 cm. (Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo).
72. Path to the beach, by Vincent van Gogh. Sketch in his letter no.369 to Theo van Gogh,
29th and 30th July 1883. (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Vincent van Gogh Foundation).
other works from this period, it is perhaps not immediately
straightforward to spot Van Gogh’s hand throughout the whole
of Sunset at Montmajour because large parts of the foreground and
middle ground are not as well observed as is usual. On the right,
in particular, to which the eye is led, the strokes are barely
descriptive at all, making this passage more reminiscent of the late
work of Lovis Corinth, say, than of Van Gogh. There is a similar abstraction in the strip of sand and boulders on the left, which
he wanted to illuminate with his ‘shower of gold’ but which is so
overwhelmed with dark green, reddish brown and orange-yellow strokes and dots as to make it almost unrecognisable. Van
Gogh clearly did not know how to handle either passage and just
filled them in willy-nilly, possibly as darkness was falling. That
failure would explain why he was so disappointed with Sunset at
Montmajour and regarded it as the most prominent example of
works that were ‘not at all successful and unfinished’ that he sent
to Theo in August.52
However, something that undoubtedly contributed to Van
Gogh’s disparagement of his work was that he must have had
very high expectations for the subject. He had painted several
sunsets in June,53 but the one at Montmajour was his very first
attempt to do so by showing the sunlight reflecting off the
landscape, which enabled him to display a colourist’s invention
by evoking the strong golden glow typical of sunsets in the south
of France. In order to draw the light sky and the dark foreground
closer together he not only made the fields in the vista lighter
than they were in reality,54 but also painted yellow-orange dots
and blobs all over, even where the late evening sunlight
could not have reached, such as the shaded side of the bushes
on the right. However, the uncontrolled manner prevents the
dots and blobs from functioning properly as lighting effects.
They look as if they are part of the foliage and, although the
darkening of the yellow-orange will have contributed to that,
one can well understand why the scene was once described as an
‘autumn landscape’.55
However important it might have been, the convincing
suggestion of the reflection of a sunset on the landscape was actually a secondary aim. What Van Gogh really wanted to depict
was the intimacy of nature at this spot, untouched by modern
life. The ‘virginity of nature’ brought him peace and awakened
existential, religious feelings, and they, after all, lay at the heart of
his calling as an artist.56 Sunset at Montmajour was thus an extension of a work such as his watercolour of a path to the beach near
The Hague (Fig.72), where ‘the stillness, nature alone’ of the
windy stretch had struck him so forcibly in 1883: ‘sometimes it’s
precisely those spots that one needs to achieve calm’.57 He linked
this particular feeling with Jacob van Ruisdael’s Bush in the
Musée du Louvre, Paris (Fig.73), a work he knew well and
copied in drawings at the beginning of his career.58 What he
admired in Ruisdael’s painting was ‘that dramatic quality that
causes one to find a je ne sais quoi in it’, and hence ‘expresses that
moment and that place in nature where one can go alone, without company’.59 And although Van Gogh referred to Monticelli
in his letter about Sunset at Montmajour in order to stress the
immemorial Provençal nature of the area, the place awakened in
him, above all, the drama of Ruisdael’s Bush, for to his mind the
52
after Ruisdael’s Bush.
59 Ibid., no.361.
60 Ibid., no.639.
61 Ibid., nos.635 and 636.
62 Drawings preceded his earlier size 30 paintings (see note 16 above) with the
exception of F 465, but that is such a simple composition that it was unnecessary to
do that kind of preparatory work.
63 See Letters, no.639, and also no.658 of 9th August, in which he reported that the
Letters, no.660; he mentioned F 448, F 426, F 422 and F 427.
F 422, F 465, F 427.
54 In his description of the spot he said that the fields were ‘purple’; see Letters,
no.636.
55 See note 30 above.
56 The quotation is from Letters, no.369.
57 Ibid.
58 Ibid., no.361. See nos.157–59 for Van Gogh’s copies after the etching by Daubigny
53
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73. The bush, by Jacob van Ruisdael. c.1647. Canvas, 168 by 82 cm. (Musée du
Louvre, Paris).
74. Olive trees, by Vincent van Gogh. 1888. Reed pen and ink on paper, 48 by 60 cm.
(Musée des Beaux-Arts, Tournai).
whole region around Montmajour was redolent of the spirit of
the Dutch painter. ‘I’ve already told you more than once how
much the Camargue and the Crau – apart from a difference in
colour and the clearness of the atmosphere – make me think of
the old Holland of Ruisdael’s day’.60
Although Van Gogh must have been thinking of painting in
this area since May, he began this particular scene by accident.
He had planned to go and explore the Camargue at the beginning of July, but when that was cancelled because his guide
pulled out he dashed off to Montmajour instead,61 which was just
as primitive. That train of events may explain why this first
attempt at capturing the area was such a failure. Ambitious
paintings need time to ripen and grow to fruition in the mind,
and Van Gogh seems not to have given himself that period of
incubation. He had discovered that there was a painting in the
oaks bent by the wind with the view of the abbey ruins and the
fields in the distance, but unlike his equally large Harvest he had
not reconnoitred the site first in drawings but immediately set
about making a painting, and had to face the attendant problems
as he was working.62
When Van Gogh returned to the area three days later in order
to carry on with his campaign he blamed his lack of control over
his brush on the mistral.63 He dropped the idea of painting and
started to make large drawings of the area, but still with the
model of Ruisdael in his mind’s eye.64 The control and command of the scenes that he drew with his reed pen is unparalleled
(Fig.74), and it is difficult to see this in isolation from his disappointment over the lack of precision and style in Sunset at Mont-
majour. It is as if he was out for revenge, but was forced to take it
in another medium. However, he did not forget the point of
departure, for at the end of his campaign of drawing he tried
once again to paint the subject of the holly oaks in the mistral at
sunset, and the result was The rocks (Fig.60). By then he had
learned more and adjusted his sights accordingly. He chose a
smaller format, simplified the subject and composition, kept the
brushstrokes as terse as possible, and largely omitted the reflection of the sun’s rays.
Van Gogh was a little dismissive of his achievement in The
rocks, and that is a little odd, given the undeniable attractiveness
of the painting, but it is understandable.65 The rocks was born of
an attempt to discover whether even in a high wind he could
retain some precision, whereas Sunset at Montmajour was painted
to achieve the highest ambition of all: to show that there was ‘no
pettiness to lofty feelings’, as Fromentin said of Ruisdael.66 Like
his seventeenth-century predecessor, Van Gogh wanted to
convince as ‘one of the solitary ramblers who fly from the town,
frequent the outskirts, sincerely love the country, who feel it
without exaggeration and describe it without phrases, who are
made uneasy by distant horizons, charmed by large plains, affected
by a shadow, and enchanted by a ray of sunshine’.67 Although the
high winds coupled with the short preparation time had prevented him from producing a truly persuasive work, the shortcomings of his painting perhaps strike us less today than the
seduction of his ambition to lift the scene to such a high poetic
level, ‘because nature like this can sometimes awaken in a mind
things that would otherwise never have woken’.68
mistral had been blowing uninterruptedly for six weeks.
64 For this series of five drawings, to which he wanted to add a sheet that he had
already sent to Theo in May (Fig.71), see M. Vellekoop and R. Zwikker: Vincent van
Gogh. Drawings. Arles, Saint-Rémy & Auvers-sur-Oise 1888–1890. Van Gogh Museum.
Volume 4, Zwolle and Amsterdam 2007, pt.1, pp.135–44. The switch from paintings
to drawings has also been explained as a consequence of Van Gogh’s need to
economise – see Ives, op. cit. (note 11), p.236 – but the discovery of this new painting makes that explanation less plausible.
65 ‘I’ve started a painting too – but no means of doing it with the mistral, absolutely
impossible’; Letters, no.639. Van Gogh was by no means as dissatisfied as this quotation suggests; see note 12 above.
66 E. Fromentin: Les maîtres d’autrefois: Belgique, Hollande, Paris 1876, here cited after
the English translation: The Masters of Past Time, Oxford 1981, p.143.
67 Ibid., pp.144–45.
68 Letters, no.401.
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