Breaking news in the Netherlands and the art world: there’s a new Van Gogh! I was so happy when I saw the news at De Wereld Draait Door tonight.
Welcome to the “real” world “Het Bloemstilleven met akkerbloemen en rozen”!
The painting’s authenticity has been in doubt ever since the museum acquired it in 1974. But now, a team of researchers from the TU Delft, the University of Antwerp, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) Hamburg, the Van Gogh Museum and the Kröller-Müller Museum has succeeded in confirming that it is truly a painting by Van Gogh. The leading clue was the underlying painting they discovered through x-ray. Beneath the flowers, they discovered a painting of two wrestling men, and they connected it with a 1886 letter of Van Gogh to his brother Theo. Awesome!
How apt that I’ve been reading Vincent’s letters to his brother Theo for the past few months. I have always admired the brothers’ very close relationship and how they have always been there for each other. The correspondence of the brothers, along with other letters of Van Gogh can all be accessed online, thanks to the Van Gogh Museum and Huygen’s ING. You can even see the original scans and translations in English! I can spend hours just reading his letters!
And how cosmic that the “new” painting is so close to where I live now. I’ve been planning to visit the Veluwe park and forests, where the Kröller-Müller museum is actually located.Now is the perfect time. The time for new flowers!
“Still life with meadow flowers and roses” can be viewed from tomorrow at 12.30pm at the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo.
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