Van Gogh Museum Journal 1995

[p. 165]

Catalogue of acquisitions 1963-1994

This is a catalogue of all the works that have been acquired for the collection by either the Van Gogh Museum or the Vincent van Gogh Foundation. Although the museum only opened in 1973, purchases were being made long before then. Not included, of course, are the works owned by the Vincent van Gogh Foundation that were once part of the family collection. Each work has an inventory number made up as follows: the first letter stands for the technique (S = paintings), followed by the reference number and then by a capital (M = Museum property, V = property of the Vincent van Gogh Foundation, and MM = the Museum Mesdag).

Anonymous

Seated female nude
Oil on pasteboard, 36 × 37 cm
Unsigned
S 333 V/1966

Provenance Paul Gachet, Auvers-sur-Oise; Paul Gachet Jr, Auvers-sur-Oise; Galerie Valentien, Stuttgart; purchased by the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1966).

Landscape with a road
Oil on paper, 18 × 25.5 cm
Unsigned
S 330 V/1966

Provenance Paul Gachet, Auvers-sur-Oise; Paul Gachet Jr, Auvers-sur-Oise; Galerie Valentien, Stuttgart; purchased by the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1966).

Reclining female nude
Oil on canvas, 65.2 × 41 cm
Unsigned
S 357 V/1966

The odd angle of view and strange cropping of the corners suggest that this is a study for the decoration of a wall or ceiling.

Provenance Paul Gachet, Auvers-sur-Oise; Paul Gachet Jr, Auvers-sur-Oise; Galerie Valentien, Stuttgart; purchased by the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1966).

Literature Van Uitert 1987, p. 307.

Landscape with hills and water
Oil on canvas on paper, 12.5 × 17.5 cm
Unsigned
S 331 V/1966

Provenance Paul Gachet, Auvers-sur-Oise; Paul Gachet Jr, Auvers-sur-Oise; Galerie Valentien, Stuttgart; purchased by the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1966).

[p. 166]

Woman with a hat
Oil on pasteboard, 48 × 36.5 cm
Unsigned
S 332 V/1966

Provenance Paul Cachet, Auvers-sur-Oise; Paul Gachet Jr, Auvers-sur-Oise; Galerie Valentien, Stuttgart; purchased by the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1966).

Anonymous
formerly attributed to Claude Monet

Unharnessed horse and wagon
Oil on canvas, 58 × 75 cm
Signed at lower left: Claude Monet
S 345 V/1966

This painting, which bears the full signature ‘Claude Monet’, shows an unharnessed horse against the background of a canal in which a boat with hoisted sail can be made out. Neither the style nor the subject bear any relation to the work of this French Impressionist. The signature was probably added later, although the thick layer of varnish now makes it impossible to verify this.

Provenance H.A.D. Thomas, Amsterdam; bequeathed to the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1966).

Literature Van Uitert 1987, p. 307.

Anonymous
formerly attributed to Vincent van Gogh

Head of a peasant woman 1884
Oil on canvas on panel, 47.5 × 34.5 cm
Unsigned
S 343 V/1966

This unfinished portrait of a peasant woman, which once belonged to the Dutch critic and connoisseur H.P. Bremmer, has until now been attributed to Van Gogh. Hulsker, though, dissented. The fuzzy brushwork is indeed not found in Van Gogh's oeuvre, and comparable unfinished works are also unknown. The technical structure of the portrait, with its green, dry underpaint with brown on top, reinforces the argument that the picture is not by Van Gogh but by another artist trained in the peasant genre. The X-ray photograph shows that the portrait was painted over a scene with a spinning-wheel, but even that provides no grounds for attributing the picture to Van Gogh.

Provenance H.P. Bremmer, The Hague; heirs of H.P. Bremmer, The Hague; Van Wisselingh gallery, Amsterdam (1960); H.A.D. Thomas, Amsterdam; bequeathed to the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1966).

Literature De la Faille 1970, p. 96, no. 159; Van Uitert 1987, p. 317; not in Hulsker 1989; not in Walther 1990.

Landing-stage at Amsterdam 1885
Oil on canvas on panel, 35 × 47 cm
Signed at lower right: Vincent
S 364 M/1982

Van Gogh painted two ‘small panels [...] in a great hurry’ during a three-day visit to Amsterdam in October 1885 [537/426]. One of them is undoubtedly the View of the Singel now in the P. and N. de Boer Foundation in Amsterdam. In 1928, De la Faille identified the other as the work illustrated here. That attribution appears to be based on little more than the subject, which does indeed bear a vague resemblance to the View of the Singel. However, it is painted on canvas, not panel, and it does not have the same dimensions as the other townscape, as Vanbeselaere pointed out in 1937.

[p. 167]

The painting, which is signed ‘Vincent’, was nevertheless retained in the oeuvre catalogues, but falsely so, as recent X-ray examination has shown. The rather weak brushwork has little in common with Van Gogh's, and the use of colour is also atypical. Although the picture does not appear to be a deliberate forgery, the thick layer of varnish makes it impossible to discover whether the signature was added later. The second of the two ‘small panels’ has now in fact been identified. It is a harbour scene which until recently was wrongly assigned to Van Gogh's Antwerp period: The Ruijterkade in Amsterdam with tugboats (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, Vincent van Gogh Foundation).

Provenance A. Hahnloser, Winterthur; H.R. Hahnloser, Bern; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum at Galerie Nathan, Zürich (1982).

Literature De la Faille 1970, p. 81, no. 114; Hulsker 1989, p. 208, no. 945; Van Uitert 1987, pp. 350, 365; Walther 1990, vol. 1, p. 129; Reindert Groot and Sjoerd de Vries, Vincent van Gogh in Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1990, pp. 114-15.

Aarts, Johannes Josephus see Vijlbrief, Jan

Allebé, August
Dutch, 1838-1927

Visit to the museum 1870
Oil on canvas, 46.7 × 38.3 cm
Signed and dated twice; at lower left: Allebé
Bruxelles, MDCCCLXX; at upper centre: Allebé 1870 Bruxelles
S 425 M/1991

Allebé was an Amsterdam master who was appointed professor at the city's National Academy of Art in 1870, and this carefully composed canvas presents a view inside the former Musée des Plâtres, which was housed in what was once William the Silent's palace in Brussels. The same subject is depicted in two panels by Allebé, Visit to the museum (Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum) and The old museum attendant (The Hague, Museum Mesdag) which were once a single picture. The work in the Van Gogh Museum is a half-finished design for another version of the subject. It shows the same young woman as in the Stedelijk Museum's picture, but she has now wandered into another of the galleries. Although the work is unfinished, Allebé signed it twice and gave it to Anna Gildemeester, a pupil and friend.

Provenance Anna Gildemeester, Amsterdam; heirs of Anna Gildemeester; Amsterdam (Christie's), 19 September 1991, lot 399; gift of the Friends of the Van Gogh Museum (1991).

Literature W. Loos and C. van Tuyll van Serooskerken, Waarde heer Allebé: Leven en werken van August Allebé, Zwolle 1988, pp. 129, 131; Van Gogh Bulletin 6 (1991), no. 4, p. 16.

Alma-Tadema, Lawrence
Dutch, 1836-1912

Portrait of the singer George Henschel
Esq. at the piano 1879
Oil on panel, 49 × 35.1 cm
Signed and inscribed at upper left: L. Alma Tadema
Op. CCII.
S 426 M/1991 (colour pl. p. 149)

[p. 168]

When Lawrence Alma-Tadema painted this portrait of George Henschel in 1879 they had been close friends for two years, having met at a dinner party in Kensington. As a conductor George, later Sir George, Henschel (1850-1934) had led several orchestras, but he made his name as a baritone. He retained his singing voice until a ripe old age and there are still recordings from 1914 and 1928 of his interpretation of Lieder by Schubert and Schumann. Henschel also sat for John Singer Sargent ten years after Alma-Tadema's portrait (London, Royal Academy).

Henschel performed regularly at Alma-Tadema's home. This portrait was painted in Townshend House, but planned during a reception at Max Schlesinger's, the London representative of the Kölner Zeitung. Here, Henschel had sung ‘Mainacht’ by Brahms, accompanying himself at the piano. The room depicted is Alma-Tadema's Gold Room, with its wainscoting in Byzantine style and floor inlaid with ebony and maple wood. The background of the portrait is formed by a curtain of Chinese silk. Beside it, the lower section of a window is visible with panes of Mexican onyx into which Alma-Tadema's name and initials have been inscribed. The piano was designed by the architect George Fox and made by John Broadwood & Sons; the sofa, of which Alma-Tadema has portrayed a section of the backrest, was designed to match it.

Provenance Gift from Alma-Tadema to George Henschel, London (1879); inherited by his daughter Helen Henschel; Georgina Henschel, Kingussie, Inverness-shire, Scotland; (London (Christie's), 25 October 1991, lot 32; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1991).

Literature Carel Vosmaer, Catalogue raissonné of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Leiden 1885, p 234; Vern G. Swanson, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, London 1977, pp. 28-29, 31-32, 58, 138; Vern G. Swanson, The biography and catalogue raisonné of the paintings of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, London 1990, no. 248, with extensive literature; Van Gogh Bulletin 8 (1993), no. 1, pp. 10-12, De Leeuw 1994, p. 34.

Aman-Jean, Edmond
French, 1858-1936

Portrait of Thadée Caroline Jacquet c. 1891-92
Oil on canvas, 55.1 × 46.2 cm
Signed at lower left: Aman Jean
S 420 M/1991 (colour pl. p. 161)

Aman-Jean, known as a friend of Georges Seurat's (with whom he shared a studio for some time), studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and with Puvis de Chavannes. He was a member of the circle around the poet Stéphane Mallarmé, and between 1892 and 1897 he exhibited at the Salons of the Rose+Croix. He portrayed numerous artist-friends from the Symbolist milieu: Paul Verlaine, Sàr Péladan and Villiers de l'Isle Adam. He excelled in poetic portraits of women, as warmly described by Octave Mirbeau in his review of the Salon du Champs de Mars: ‘They are simple portraits of women. They are delightful, these delicate profiles of virgins, with blended contours, in drooping, pure poses, past virgins, present virgins, forever virgins.’

This portrait of Thadée Caroline Jacquet, the woman Aman-Jean was soon to marry, was painted around 1891-92. In 1891 the artist made a lithograph showing more or less the same profile view of her - but reversed - smelling a rose. In this painting, flowers fill the background. The painting is a smaller, more close-up version of the portrait bought by the French state at the 1892 Salon, now in the Musée d'Orsay. It seems to be a study for this latter work, but the precise relationship between the two is difficult to establish.

Provenance London (Christie's, Manson & Woods), 19 March 1991, lot 20; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1991).

Literature Gabriel Mourey, ‘A modern portrait-painter: M. Aman-Jean,’ The Studio 8 (1896), pp. 199-200; Acquisitions 1991, pp. 58-59, 65; Patrick-Gilles Persin, Aman-Jean: peintre de la femme, Paris 1993, pp. 27-29; Tokyo 1994, no. 25; De Leeuw 1994, pp. 252-53.

[p. 169]

Anquetin, Louis
French, 1861-1932

Old peasant 1886
Oil on canvas, 129 × 96.5 cm
Signed and dated at lower left. Anquetin 1886
S 384 M/1988

In 1883, after he had seen Monet at work, Anquetin became fascinated by Impressionism. In the summer of 1886 he still worked in a style related to it, as is clear from the date of this study of an old peasant, who is leaning on two sticks.

When in November or December 1887 Vincent van Gogh organised an exhibition of works by his friends at the Grand Bouillon, Anquetin was among those whose pictures were on show. Later, Van Gogh looked back with a certain degree of satisfaction on this event, as some paintings were even sold: ‘Thomas eventually bought Anquetin's study: Le paysan,’ he reported to Emile Bernard. As we know of no other works by Anquetin with the same subject, it is quite possible that this painting of an old farmer is the work sold at that time.

Provenance Georges Thomas, Paris [?]; London (Phillips), 27 June 1988, lot 51; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1988).

Literature Van Gogh Bulletin 4 (1989), no. 1, n.p.; De brieven van Vincent van Gogh, ed. Han van Crimpen and Monique Berends-Albert, 4 vols., The Hague 1990, vol. 3, no. 645 (B 10); De Bodt 1989, p. 252; Acquisitions 1991, pp. 46-47, 65; De Leeuw 1994, pp. 110-11.

Bernard, Emile
French, 1868-1941

Street in Pont-Aven 1886
Oil on canvas, 43 × 60 cm
Signed at lower right with the studio stamp; Emile
Bernard
S 390 M/1990

This view of a Breton village illustrates the erratic nature of Bernard's development in the 1880s. Here he has abandoned his earlier Pointillist technique for an Impressionist style. An inscription on the back identifies the canvas as coming from the collection of Rippl Ronai, the Hungarian Nabi painter who spent some time in Pont-Aven in 1889.

Provenance R. Ronai, Switzerland; Lucerne (Fischer), 16 and 17 July 1972, lot 171 (dated 1884); donated to the Van Gogh Museum by Mr and Mrs B. Ekström, Uppsala (1990).

Literature Luthi 1982, no. 20; Stevens 1990, no. 4; Acquisitions 1991, p. 65.

[p. 170]

Bernard, Emile
(continued)

Two Breton women in a meadow 1886 Oil on panel, 78.7 (left) × 81 (top) × 59.8 (right) × 83.2 (bottom)
Signed and dated at lower left: Em. Bernard 86 [?]
S 437 M/1992

While making his way to Brittany in the summer of 1886, Bernard fell in with the painter Emile Schuffenecker in Normandy. The latter was exploring Pointillism at the time, and encouraged Bernard to make similar experiments. This is the most consistent and convincing of his few surviving Pointillist paintings (by his own account he later destroyed most of the others). It is painted on a few deal planks and is from the collection of Andries Bonger, Theo van Gogh's brother-in-law, who owned a large number of Bernard's works.

Provenance Andries Bonger; Mrs F.W. Bonger-van der Borch van Verwolde, Almen; private collection, The Netherlands; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1992).

Literature Not in Luthi 1982; Stevens 1990, no. 7; De Leeuw 1994, p. 112

Seaside near Raguenez c. 1887
Oil on canvas, marouflé on panel, 77 × 57 cm Signed at lower right: Emile Bernard
S 391 M/1990

This study is dated to 1887 on the evidence of the extremely ‘Synthetic’ rendering of the coastline, the colours of which are limited to a few mixed shades. It is impossible to say whether this experimental work is in fact finished.

Provenance Donated to the Van Gogh Museum by Mr and Mrs B. Ekström, Uppsala (1990).

Literature Luthi 1982, no. 54; Acquisitions 1991, p. 65.

Trees 1888
Oil on canvas, 33 × 41 cm
Signed and dated at lower left: Emile Bernard 1888
S 392 M/1990

It seems that in this small landscape Bernard set out to combine impressionistic effects with the new style of Synthetism that came to dominate his work in the summer of 1888. The forms of the landscape are highly simplified and have been given contours, but the pink and blue colours were chosen fairly arbitrarily. The colour contrasts and the application of the paint in small flicks are intended to suggest the effect of bright sunlight.

On the back of the canvas is the inscription: ‘a ma fille Suzanne Pa-Médée’, from which it can be deduced that the painting once belonged to Amédée Schuffenecker, the art dealer and brother of the painter, who evidently gave it to his daughter.

Provenance R. Lundén, Enebyberg; London (Sotheby's), 1 July 1987, lot 167; donated to the Van Gogh Museum by Mr and Mrs B. Ekström, Uppsala (1990).

Literature Exhib. cat. Emile Bernard, Sala (Aguéli Museum) and Uppsala (Konsthallen) 1976-77, no. 5; Luthi 1982, no. 127; Acquisitions 1991, p. 65.

[p. 171]

The blue bird 1889
Oil on canvas, 73 × 60 cm
Signed and dated at lower right: Emile Bernard 1889
S 393 M/1990

Religious and romantic subjects first appear in Bernard's art in 1889. The blue bird can be seen as an effort to make a substantial contribution to the cause of Symbolism. To Bernard's great disappointment, however, Gauguin was to become its main representative. This painting can be identified with number 25 of the inventory Bernard made in 1905 of works sold to the art dealer Ambroise Vollard. There, it is listed under the title ‘L'Oiseau bleu,’ dated 1889, and has the format ‘toile de 20.’ The subject of the painting is partly explained by a passage from one of Bernard's autobiographical writings: ‘I had no friends / Sat at the end of the small bed / Pale and feverish / I dreamed of music / I read big picture books / Full of enchanted fairy tales / Sleeping beauty who sleeps / On a bed fit for a wise king / The blue bird swooping through the streets / Like a magic carpet.’

Provenance Ambroise Vollard, 1905; R. Lundén, Enebyberg; London (Christie's), 26 March 1984, lot 17; donated to the Van Gogh Museum by Mr and Mrs B. Ekström, Uppsala (1990).

Literature Exhib. cat. Emile Bernard, Dallas (Valley Houses Gallery) 1962, no. 14; exhib. cat. Emile Bernard, Sala (Aguéli Museum) and Uppsala (Konsthallen) 1976-77, no. 9; J.-J. Luthi, Emile Bernard, chef d'école de Pont-Aven, Paris 1976, p. 22; Luthi 1982, no. 214; Stevens 1990, no. 66; Van Gogh Bulletin 5 (1990), no. 3, p. 12; Acquisitions 1991, pp. 48-49, 65; De Leeuw 1994, p. 243.

Still life with jar, cup and fruit 1889 Oil on canvas, 46.5 × 64 cm
Signed and dated at upper left: Emile Bernard 1889
S 394 M/1990

Bernard here sought to model himself on Cézanne. This type of picture, with a prominent jug or pitcher, made its appearance in Cézanne's oeuvre towards the end of the 1880s, and Bernard, who was a great admirer of the older master, may have seen works of that kind in Père Tanguy's colour-shop in Paris. Although the signature and date seem authentic, it is by no means certain that the canvas was actually painted in 1889. Bernard often dated his works many years later, which has led to numerous inaccuracies. Around 1889 he was experimenting with Synthetism and was not yet looking to Cézanne for inspiration. Against that, Bernard was notoriously capricious in his choice of style (as even his contemporaries pointed out), so the date may be correct after all.

Provenance Ambroise Vollard, Paris; donated to the Van Gogh Museum by Mr and Mrs B. Ekström, Uppsala (1990).

Literature Luthi 1982, no. 223; Acquisitions 1991, p. 65.

Landscape with huntsmen
(Hunt for the Erymanthian boar) c. 1889 Oil on canvas, 75 × 50 cm
Signed at lower left: Emile Bernard
S 397 M/1990

In its brushwork, use of colour and composition this painting also attests to a strong affinity with Cézanne. It is conceivable that the painter was inspired by Cézanne's Road with trees and lake of circa 1880 (Otterlo, Kröller-Müller Museum), a work that was to become part of the collection of Bernard's friend and patron, the Dutch art collector Andries Bonger. Bernard romanticises the landscape, however, by adding a wild boar hunt; the

[p. 172]

heroic nudity of the horsemen even suggests that this may be the pursuit of the Erymanthian boar - one of the twelve labours of Hercules.

Provenance A. Mankowitz, Stockholm; donated to the Van Gogh Museum by Mr and Mrs B. Ekström, Uppsala (1990).

Literature Luthi 1982, no. 396; Van Gogh Bulletin 5 (1990), no. 3, p. 12; Acquisitions 1991, p. 65; De Leeuw 1994, p. 245.

Bernard, Emile
(continued)

Still life with cup, fruit bowl,
teapot and fruit 1890
Oil on canvas, 39 × 47 cm
Signed, dated and dedicated at lower left: a M.
Bonger E. Bernard 90
S 395 M/1990

The dedication of this bold still life to Andries Bonger, Theo van Gogh's brother-in-law, makes this a particularly interesting work. Bernard appears to have first met Bonger at the funeral of Vincent van Gogh in July 1890. This painting of the same year thus marks the beginning of a long-lasting relationship between the painter and the collector, who eventually owned 24 of his paintings and drawings and eight prints.

Provenance Andries Bonger; A. Mankowitz, Stockholm; donated to the Van Gogh Museum by Mr and Mrs B. Ekström, Uppsala (1990).

Literature Luthi 1982, no. 268; Stevens 1990, no. 47; Van Gogh Bulletin 5 (1990), no. 3, p. 13; Acquisitions



1991, pp. 49, 66; exhib. cat. Van Cogh and Japan, Kyoto (The National Museum of Modern Art) and Tokyo (Setagaya Art Museum) 1992, no. 49; De Leeuw 1994, p. 242.

Pont-Aven seen from the Bois
d'Amour 1892
Oil on canvas, 101 × 76 cm
Signed and dated at lower right: Emile Bernard 1892
S 293 V/1969

Prior to his departure for the Middle East in the spring of 1893, Emile Bernard went to Pont-Aven in Brittany for the last time. Although Gauguin had left the village the previous year for Tahiti, some of his followers, such as Armand Seguin and Paul Sérusier, still continued to visit there. Bernard seems to have kept them at a distance, however, and instead began to explore other stylistic avenues. Instead of Gauguin, Cézanne now became his great model. His dependence on the latter is exemplified in this view of Pont-Aven; here Bernard has not only mastered Cézanne's brushwork, with its more or less uniform strokes, but also borrows one of the master's compositional devices: a row of trees at once reaffirms the painted surface and sets off the plunging view. A similar painting, also dated 1892 (Josefowitz Collection), shows a detail of the same scene.

Provenance Andries Bonger; donated to the Vincent van Gogh Foundation by Mrs F.W. Bonger-van der Borch van Verwolde, Almen, in memory of Andries Bonger (1969).

[p. 173]

Literature De Telegraph, 23 March 1940; exhib. cat. André Bonger en zijn kunstenaarsvrienden Redon-Bernard-Van Gogh, Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1972, no. 81; Stevens 1990, no. 19; Van Uitert 1987, p. 309; De Leeuw 1994, pp. 244-45.

Still life with bottles and fruit c. 1893
Oil on canvas, 45 × 32 cm
Signed at centre right: Emile Bernard
S 398 M/1990

Given Bernard's stylistic inconsistency, it is difficult to date this painting with any certainty. Its dark tonality might lead one to suppose an early date, possibly around 1884-86, during his pre-Impressionist days in the studio of Fernand Cormon. The deliberate awkwardness of the composition and the rough brushwork also bear strong similarities to the early still lifes of Cézanne, which Bernard saw at Père Tanguy's colour-shop. In the early 1890s he frequently looked to the older artist's work for stylistic guidance: ‘Everyone, surely, recognises a master and tries to adapt himself as much as possible - for me, that is Cézanne,’ he wrote in 1891 (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Rijksprentenkabinet, Bonger Archive, Emile Bernard, ‘Letter 81,’ 1891).

Provenance Mrs Georgette Henri, Paris; A. Mankowitz, Stockholm; donated to the Van Gogh Museum by Mr and Mrs B. Ekström, Uppsala (1990).

Literature Luthi 1982, no. 401; Acquisitions 1991, p. 66.

Egyptian dancer c. 1893
Oil on cardboard, 51 × 32 cm
Signed at lower right: Emile Bernard 93
S 400 M/1990

This oil sketch, which is executed in the odd and strident colour combination of yellow-green and violet, is related to the watercolours drawn in purple ink and then coloured that Bernard made on his first trip to the Orient in 1893-94. His paintings from that time were naturally inspired by the new world he discovered in the Middle East, but stylistically they still bear traces of the Synthetism of his Breton period.

Provenance Donated to the Van Gogh Museum by Mr and Mrs B. Ekström, Uppsala (1990).

Literature Luthi 1982, no. 416; Acquisitions 1991, p. 66.

Venetian maidservant 1903
Oil on canvas, 100 × 77 cm
Signed and dated at upper right: Emile Bernard
Venise 1903
S 401 M/1990

From March to October 1893, Bernard was in Venice with Andrée Fort, who later became his second wife, and two children from his first marriage. He was now distancing himself from modern Synthetist painting, of which he had been one of the originators. In its place came a marked leaning towards a more classical, historicising style in which he was influenced by Venetian Renaissance painters whose technique he tried to imitate, as can be seen in this work.

Provenance Ambroise Vollard, Paris; Galerie Nicolas Poussin, Paris; donated to the Van Gogh Museum by Mr and Mrs B. Ekström, Uppsala (1990).

Literature Luthi 1982, no. 644; Acquisitions 1991, p. 664.

Two monks in a ravine (‘Portrait of Cézanne and Bernard’) c. 1904
Oil on cardboard, 70 × 100 cm
Signed at lower left: Emile Bernard
S 408 M/1990

This landscape was probably painted near Tonnerre, where Bernard settled in 1904. The subject of monks who have withdrawn into a wilderness was popularised in the 18th century by the Genoese painter Allessandro Magnasco. According to a family tradition this is an allegorical portrait of Cézanne and Bernard, but that seems unlikely.

Provenance Donated to the Van Gogh Museum by Mr and Mrs B. Ekström, Uppsala (1990).

Literature Not in Luthi 1989; Acquisitions 1991, p. 67.

[p. 174]

Bernard, Emile
(continued)

Still life with apples, grapes and a shell c. 1905-O6
Oil on cardboard, 34 × 42 cm
Signed at centre right: Emile Bernard
S 396 M/1990

The date of circa 1890 that Luthi gives in his oeuvre catalogue is almost certainly incorrect. The dark background, the search for a traditional effect of space, the emphasis on the fall of light and the reflections on the smooth, circular forms are inextricably bound up with Bernard's reversion to traditional styles and painting techniques around 1905, after his visit to Cézanne. He had called on the venerated master in Aix, and even copied one of his still lifes, but he then turned his back on Cézanne's modernism in favour of a more traditional manner that stressed light and space.

Provenance Ambroise Vollard, Paris; donated to the Van Gogh Museum by Mr and Mrs B. Ekström, Uppsala (1990).

Literature Luthi 1982, no. 27; Acquisitions 1991, p. 66.

Portrait of Andries Bonger, his wife and Emile Bernard 1908
Oil on canvas, 101 × 101 cm
Signed, dated and dedicated at centre right: A mes excellents et bien surs amis Bonger de leur dévoué Emile Bernard 1908
S 366 V/1982

Bernard painted this triple portrait while on a visit to the Bongers in 1908 that proved to be his last. Each of the sitters is engaged in his or her favourite



artistic activity. Mrs Bonger-van der Linden is playing the piano, her husband is looking up from his book, and Bernard is standing before an unfinished painting. In the left background is part of the carved and painted frame of a mirror that Bonger had ordered from Bernard and which the artist had now brought with him from Paris. On the right is a fire-screen with tapestry decoration that Bonger had acquired from Bernard's mother in 1899. The passionate dedication, ‘A mes excellents et bien surs amis Bonger de leur dévoué Emile Bernard’, could not disguise the fact that relations between the painter and his patron were gradually cooling. It is clear from their correspondence that Bonger did not really care for Bernard's later, traditional style, while Bernard in turn accused the collector of stubbornly clinging to a passé modernism. After Bonger's death, his second wife, Mrs Van der Borch van Verwolde, found the painting rolled up in the attic, and returned it to Bernard. The Van Gogh Museum acquired it from one of the artist's daughters.

Provenance Mr and Mrs A. Bonger-van der Linden, Amsterdam, Mrs F.W.M. Bonger-van der Borch van Verwolde, Almen; Emile Bernard (1937-1941); Mr and Mrs Altarriba, Paris (1941-1973); purchased by the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1973).

Literature V.W. van Gogh, ‘A threefold portrait by Emile Bernard,’ Bulletin of the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh 4 (1976), no. 4, pp. 2-4; not in Luthi 1982; Van Uitert 1987, p. 307; Stevens 1990, no. 78; De Leeuw 1994, p. 13.

Still life with teapot and shell c. 1910
Oil on panel, 67 × 50 cm
Signed at lower left: Emile Bernard
S 399 M/1990

The date of circa 1893 in Luthi's oeuvre catalogue is almost certainly incorrect, given the type of subject and the traditional treatment. The painting should be grouped instead with a number of ‘sumptuous’ still lifes that Luthi dates around 1910, some of which feature one or more of these objects.

Provenance A. Mankowitz, Stockholm; R. Ludém, Enebyberg; Per Hamberg, Ekerö; donated to the Van Gogh Museum by Mr and Mrs B. Ekström, Uppsala (1990).

[p. 175]

Literature Exhib. cat. Emile Bernard, Sala (Aguéli Museum) & Uppsala (Konsthallen) 1976-77, no. 20; Luthi 1982, no. 402; Acquisitions 1991, p. 66.

Self-portrait 1918
Oil on paper, 67 × 52 cm
Signed, dated and annotated at centre left: Emile Bernard 1918 anno suae L.
S 402 M/1990

The painter is looking over his shoulder as if painting himself in the mirror; he is also working on an oval canvas. The right-handed artist, however, is not shown in reverse, so it has to be concluded that he painted himself while holding a second brush in his left hand.

The painting's style, with its subdued colours built up from a dark background, is based on the technique of Venetian Renaissance masters such as Titian and Tintoretto. Not only the form of the painting and its execution demonstrate an attachment to tradition, but also the way in which the painter presents himself with his smock elegantly draped around his shoulders. The inscription in Latin further indicates Bernard's desire to be seen within this lineage.

Provenance Mrs Bardor Bernard-Fort, Beaumont-sur-Oise; London (Christie's), 3 July 1987, lot 509; donated to the Van Gogh Museum by Mr and Mrs B. Ekström, Uppsala (1990).

Literature Exhib. cat. Emile Bernard, malningar, akvareller, teckningar, grafik, Gothenburg (Göteborgs Konstmuseum), Lyngby (Sophienholm-Kunstmuseum) & Stockholm (Thielska Galleriet) 1969, no. 30; The Art Collector (1968), p. 231; Luthi 1982, no. 947; Acquisitions 1991, p. 66; Tokyo 1994, no. 26.

Oriental woman c. 1925
Oil on cardboard, 80 × 67 cm
Unsigned
S 403 M/1990

The natural pose, the attractive combination of blue and yellow and the free brushwork make this one of the best of Bernard's later works. The model is probably posing in clothing that Bernard brought back from Egypt.

Provenance H. Bardot, Beaumont-sur-Oise; A. Mankowitz, Stockholm; donated to the Van Gogh Museum by Mr and Mrs B. Ekström, Uppsala (1990).

Literature Exhib. cat. Emile Bernard, Sala (Aguéli Museum) and Uppsala (Konsthallen) 1976-77, no. 34; Luthi 1982, no. 1143; Acquisitions 1991, p. 66.

Portrait of a woman in black c. 1925
Oil on cardboard, 51 × 60 cm
Signed with initials at upper right: E B; with the studio stamp at lower left; signed at lower right: Emile Bernard.
S 404 M/1990

The painting is unfinished, giving it - despite the strict frontal pose - an informal character. The same sitter posed several times for the painter, indicating that this is less a formal portrait than a study. All attention is focused on the form and proportions of the face, and it is quite likely that Bernard sought to portray an ideal of feminine beauty rather than a specific person.

Provenance Donated to the Van Gogh Museum by Mr and Mrs B. Ekström, Uppsala (1990).

Literature Luthi 1982, no. 1148; Acquisitions 1991, p. 66; Tokyo 1994, no. 27.

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Bernard, Emile
(continued)

The wise and foolish virgins c. 1927
Oil on canvas, 97 × 140 cm
Unsigned
S 405 M/1990

Bernard counted his monumental paintings of the 1920s as being among his finest achievements. He painted two series of colossal canvases in a Neo-Renaissance style. Both were called ‘Le cycle humain,’ and dealt with the history of mankind. In The wise and foolish virgins he not only tried to imitate the style of the late Michelangelo, but also simulated the effect of a fresco by adopting a thin, almost transparent manner in a limited range of colours. The hooded wise virgins, who have taken oil for their lamps in order to greet the bridegroom, are contrasted with the flighty wenches on the right, who, believing it unnecessary, left their oil at home. The message is that humankind should prepare for eternal life by taking precautions here on earth.

Provenance Donated to the Van Gogh Museum by Mr and Mrs B. Ekström, Uppsala (1990).

Literature Luthi 1982, no. 1202; Acquisitions 1991, p. 67.

Portrait of a woman reading 1931
Oil on canvas, 69 × 53 cm
Signed and dated at upper right: Emile Bernard 1931 [?]
S 409 M/1990

Bernard was much in demand as a painter of society portraits in the 1920s and 30s, and this is a good example of that kind of work. The woman is shown three-quarter length, sitting at a table. She holds a



finger between the pages of a half-open book, as if interrupting her reading. Some parts, such as the hand grasping the necklace, are sketched roughly and have a heavy outline. It is thus much like a rudimentary form of the Synthetist painting style he had developed with Anquetin 50 years earlier.

Provenance Donated to the Van Gogh Museum by Mr and Mrs B. Ekström, Uppsala (1990).

Literature Acquisitions 1991, p. 67; Tokyo 1994, no. 28.

Portrait of Mme Duchateau 1932
Oil on cardboard, 80 × 60 cm
Signed at centre right: Emile Bernard
S 406 M/1990

Luthi dates this portrait to 1932, a sound guess in view of the fluent academic style. The sitter is painted in profile, which shows her expressive face at its most advantageous. She is enveloped in a dark brown cloak and a shawl covers her head. The unconventional pose and attire suggest some connection to the art world and might provide a clue to her identity. There is a Duchateau family that produced many actors and actresses during the 19th century, and the sitter might be a descendant. She might also be identified with Marie Thérèse Duchateau (1870-1953), a portrait painter who lived in Tours.

Provenance Harriet and Sixten Karlin, Västra Frölunda; donated to the Van Gogh Museum by Mr and Mrs B. Ekström, Uppsala (1990).

Literature H. Lyonnet, Dictionnaire des comédiens français, 2 vols., Paris 1902-08; Édouard-Joseph, Dictionnaire biographique des artistes contemporains, Paris 1910-30; IBN, vol. 59; Thieme-Becker; Bénézit; Luthi 1982, no. 1366; Acquisitions 1991, p. 67.

Portrait of Mme Sonya Lewitzka 1932
Oil on cardboard, 60 × 80 cm
Signed and dated at centre left: Emile Bernard 32
S 407 M/1990

Madame Lewitzka is shown en face, sitting on a chair with its back barely visible at the left. She

[p. 177]

wears a coat over her dress and a hat, which suggests a certain informality, as if she has just dropped in for a minute or two. Her remarkably thin and expressive face, with large dark eyes, is half hidden under the shadow of her hat.

Sonya Lewitzka was a painter and graphic artist, born in Czestochowa, Poland in 1882. She was an artist of some renown who saw her work acquired by both the Musée du Luxembourg and the Albertina.

Provenance Harriet and Sixten Karlin, Västra, Frölunda; donated to the Van Gogh Museum by Mr and Mrs B. Ekström, Uppsala (1990).

Literature Bénézit; Luthi 1982, no. 1365; Acquisitions 1991, p. 67.

Seated nude c. 1930
Oil on canvas, 128 × 90 cm
Unsigned
S 410 M/1990

Bernard painted many nude studies in the 1920s and 30s, both of individual models and of groups seen in idyllic surroundings. He also copied nudes by Titian and other artists, and developed a style based on Venetian art of the Renaissance. Bernard's interest in nudes portrayed in traditional poses was bound up with his desire to be a classical painter.

Provenance Donated to the Van Gogh Museum by Mr and Mrs B. Ekström, Uppsala (1990).

Literature Luthi 1982, no. 1359; Acquisitions 1991, p. 67.

Bock, Theophile de
Dutch, 1851-1904

River landscape 1895-1902
Oil on canvas, 109.7 × 127.3 cm
Signed at lower right: Th. de Bock
S1 MM/1992

This broad river landscape was probably painted when De Bock was living in the village of Renkum, on the Rhine, to which he retreated in 1895 after a serious illness, forsaking the artistic life of The Hague.

During his Renkum period he wrote a book on Jacob Maris, who had died in 1899. The River landscape, with its towering clouds, harmonious composition and relatively calm brushwork, is a testimony to his veneration of Maris. The red, white and blue beacons on the dikes stand out against the sky as an emblem of the Netherlands. In the large-scale works from the closing years of his life, De Bock abandoned the rather facile sketchiness of his earlier compositions and adopted a more highly finished, serener manner.

In 1907, three years after the artist's death, this painting was included in a commercial exhibition at the C. Biesing gallery in The Hague, and was acquired not long afterwards by the father of H. Hulsinga, the donor.

Provenance Van Wijk, The Hague; heirs of Van Wijk; donated to the Museum Mesdag by H. Hulsinga (1992).

Literature J.H. de Bock and H.W.E. van Bruggen (eds.), Théophile de Bock. Schilder van het Nederlandse landschap, Waddinxveen 1991, pp. 27-36.

[p. 178]

Bonvin, François
French, 1817-1887

Still life with drawing implements and books 1879
Oil on zinc, 25 × 36.1 cm
Signed and dated upper right: F. Bonvin 1879
S 431 M/1992 (colour pl. p. 152)

Bonvin, like Antoine Vollon and Philippe Rousseau, was one of the masters of Realist still life who often looked to the 18th-century painter Jean-Siméon Chardin for their inspiration. Bonvin made several works depicting painting and drawing implements along the lines of Chardin's The attributes of the painter (Princeton University Art Museum). The painting in the Van Gogh Museum, which initially bore the title La table d'atelier,



originally had a pendant with painting implements (Weisberg, no. 166). That work, also painted on zinc and dated 1879, was once in the collection of someone called Seure, but it is not known whether he also owned the painting now in the Van Gogh Museum.

Provenance Purchased by the Van Gogh Museum at Stoppenbach & Delestre Ltd., London (1992).

Literature Not in Gabriel P. Weisberg, Bonvin, Paris 1979; Ronald de Leeuw, exhib. cat. Philippe Rousseau (1816-1887), Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) 1993, p. 54, no. 26; De Leeuw 1994, p. 26.

Boughton, George Henry
English, 1834-1905

God speed! Pilgrims setting out for Canterbury. Time of Chaucer 1874
Oil on canvas, 122 × 184 cm
Signed and dated at lower right: GH Boughton 74
S 380 M/1986

The canvas is a free interpretation of an episode from Chaucer's Canterbury tales. It made a great impression at the annual exhibition of London's Royal Academy in 1874 and at the World Fair in Philadelphia in 1876.

Van Gogh must have seen Boughton's God speed! at the Royal Academy in 1874. He became so enamoured of the work that in 1876, as a lay preacher at the Methodist church in Richmond, he took Boughton's picture, as well as John Bunyan's popular book Pilgrim's progress, as the point of departure for a sermon in which he likened life to a pilgrimage towards God. A smaller variant of the composition was auctioned at Sotheby's in New York on 16 February 1994, lot 19.

Provenance Duke of Buckingham; London (Christie's), 1889; Angus Smith; Layton Collection, Milwaukee Art Center; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum at the Fine Art Society, London (1986).

Literature Ronald Pickvance, exhib. cat. English influences on Vincent van Gogh, Nottingham (University Art Gallery) 1974-75, p. 19; Hope B. Werness, ‘Vincent van Gogh and a lost painting by G.H. Boughton,’ Gazette des Beaux-Arts 106 (September 1985) pp. 70-75; Van Uitert 1987, p. 364; Van Gogh Bulletin 2 (1987), no. 4; Josefine Leistra, George Henry Boughton: God speed! Pelgrims op weg naar Canterbury, Zwolle & Amsterdam 1987; De Bodt 1989, p. 253; Xander van Eck, ‘Van Gogh and George Henry Boughton,’ The Burlington Magazine 133 (August 1990), pp. 539-40; Acquisitions 1991, pp. 18-19, 67; exhib. cat. Van Gogh in England, London (Barbican Art Gallery) 1992, no. 59; De Leeuw 1994, p. 35.

Bremmer, Hendrikus Petrus
Dutch, 1871-1956

Still life with book and ginger pot 1894
Oil on canvas, 55 × 65.6 cm
Signed and dated at lower right: HPB JUNI 1894
S 418 M/1990

Bremmer was among the first painters in the Netherlands to espouse Seurat's Neo-Impressionism; he was preceded only by Jan Toorop who, through his contacts with the Belgian circle of artists known as Les XX, had been introduced to the principles of Pointillism at an early stage in his career. Bremmer also painted landscapes, but concentrated above all on still lifes, in which he employed a highly refined stipple technique to achieve subtle gradations of colour. The clear pattern of the composition gives each of the objects - several bulky tomes, a ginger pot, and an oil lamp - an orderly, calm and matter-of-fact

[p. 179]

presence. Some of the same objects are found in Bremmer's other still lifes of this period. The canvas is still in its original white frame.

Provenance F. Bremmer, The Hague; H.P. Bremmer, The Hague; A.A. Bremmer-Hollman, The Hague; Amsterdam (Christie's), 12 December 1990, lot 263; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1990).

Literature Exhib. cat. Verzameling H.P. Bremmer, The Hague (Haags Gemeentemuseum) 1950, no. 21; exhib. cat. Nieuwe Beweging: Nederlandsche Schilderkunst om 1910, The Hague (Haags Gemeentemuseum) 1955, no. 7; exhib. cat. Neo-Impressionism, New York (The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum) 1968, no. 145; exhib. cat. H.P. Bremmer, The Hague (Haags Gemeentemuseum) 1971, no. 9; exhib. cat. Licht door kleur: Nederlandse luministen, The Hague (Haags Gemeentemuseum) 1976-77, no. 4; exhib. cat. Vom Licht zur Farbe, Düsseldorf (Städtische Kunsthalle) 1977, no. 20; Acquisitions 1991, pp. 63, 68; Gertrud Wendermann, Studien zur Rezeption des Neo-Impressionismus in den Niederlanden, Münster 1993, p. 524, fig. 109; Van Gogh Bulletin 8 (1993), no. 2, pp. 14-15; De Leeuw 1994, p. 260.

Breton, Jules
French, 1827-1905

Young peasant girl with a hoe 1882
Oil on canvas, 51.5 × 46 cm
Signed and dated at lower right: Jules Breton 1882
S 386 M/1988

Along with Jean-François Millet, Jules Breton was the major painter of elevated peasant genre scenes. Peasant girl with a hoe demonstrates how Breton imbued his studies of peasant girls with traditional academic values. The young woman is seated in a landscape at dusk, the artist's favoured time of day. The location is recognisable, the church tower in the vicinity of Breton's home, Courrières. The girl's pose makes her seem monumental and she has a pensive expression. She thus transcends everyday farm life and joins the ranks of Michelangelo's sibyls and Dürer's Melancholia.

According to his wife Elodie, Breton stuck to traditional methods for his large-scale paintings of rural life: first drawing separate studies from life, then making oil studies of each figure, and finally painting a compositional sketch in which the different

[p. 180]

scenes were brought together. This picture is a study in colour after nature, but one that has the polish of a consummate work of art. Breton also signed and dated it, thereby transforming the relatively small painting into a finished work. There is no larger composition to which this study can be linked; there are, however, many variations on the motif.

Provenance Bernheim Jeune fils, Paris (until 1907); London (Sotheby's), 23 November 1988, lot 326; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1988).

Literature Van Gogh Bulletin 4 (1989), no. 4, n.p.; De Bodt 1989, p. 251; Acquisitions 1991, pp. 24-25, 68; Tokyo 1993, pp. 59-61, 97-98, no. 16; De Leeuw 1994, p. 22.

Buning, Johannes Norbertus
Dutch, 1893-1963

Portrait of Mrs Thomas
Oil on canvas, 50.2 × 40.5 cm
Signed at upper right: Johan Buning
S 344 V/1966

The self-taught Johan Buning of Amsterdam adopted an Impressionist palette. He specialised in still lifes and romantic views of old gardens and country houses. It is not known when he painted this Portrait of Mrs Thomas, which was part of the Thomas Bequest.

Provenance Mr H.A.D. Thomas, Amsterdam; bequeathed to the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1966).

Cabanel, Alexandre
French, 1824-1889

The expulsion from Paradise c. 1867
Oil on canvas, 60.3 × 45.1 cm
Signed at lower right: Alex. Cabanel
S 443 M/1994

This sketch of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise is a preliminary study for the large 1867 version of the same subject, which was sold at Sotheby's (New York) in 1994. The bigger painting, which was originally titled Paradis perdu, caused a sensation at the 1867 World Exhibition in Paris. King Ludwig II of Bavaria was so impressed by it that he commissioned Cabanel to decorate the Maximilianeum in Munich with the same subject. This preliminary study gives a good insight into the working method followed by Cabanel, who was a successful academic painter. Although the poses differ slightly from those in the final version, and despite the lack of finesse and the overly precise

[p. 181]

modelling that were so highly praised at the time, the study, too, is dominated by flowing movements, especially in the group of angels around God the Father, and by the bright, diagonal fall of light. This sketch was still in Cabanel's studio in 1883: for in that year the Austrian artist Felician von Myrbach made a pen drawing of the studio that shows the study hung midway up the wall in the right-hand corner (Vienna, Historisches Museum der Stad Wien).

Provenance Newhouse Galleries, New York; New York (Christie's), 15 February 1994, lot 12; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1994).

Carrière, Eugène
French, 1849-1906

Portrait of Arthur Fontaine and his daughter c. 1903.
Oil on canvas, 128 × 96.5 cm
Unsigned
S 440 V/1993

Arthur Fontaine (1860-1931) trained as an engineer at the famous Ecole Polytechnique in Paris and later rose to become director of the an important figure in the International Labour Organisation in Geneva. He was married to the singer Marie Escudier, whose sisters were the wives of the composer Ernest Chausson and the painter Henri Lerolle. Fontaine was a familiar figure in the artistic world of his day, and was a friend of Debussy and of the writers Claudel and Gide. Artists like Renoir, Degas, Besnard, Denis and Redon frequented his salon on the Avenue de Villars. Redon drew his portrait in red chalk (formerly Woodner Family Collection). Carrière was a close friend of Fontaine and his wife. This double portrait was painted in 1904 and exhibited that year at the Salon d'Automne, of which Carrière was both co-founder and honorary president. His biographer, J.-L. Dubray, described this painting in 1931 as the supreme masterpiece among Carrière's double portraits: ‘We are given a sense of absolute beauty achieved by the simplest means in the magnificent and celebrated portrait of Arthur Fontaine and his daughter (1904) which, with that of the sculptor Devillez and his mother, will remain the most complete and admirable type of such “double portraits”. Painted during respites in his struggle with illness, they are among



Carrière's most glorious creations.’ The painting highlights Fontaine's paternity, contrasting the father's introverted expression with the more outgoing nature of the daughter, of whom Carrière also made a preliminary study (London, Sotheby's, 5 December 1973, lot 14a).

Provenance Arthur Fontaine; Paris (Hôtel Drouôt), 13 April 1932, lot 31; private collection, Paris; purchased by the Vincent van Gogh Foundation at Galerie Hopkins-Thomas, Paris (1993).

Literature Mrs Arthur Bell, ‘Eugène Carrière (1849-1906),’ The Art Journal (November 1906), p. 326; exhib. cat. Exposition de l'oeuvre de Eugène Carrière, Paris (Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts) 1907, no. 145; J.-L. Dubray, Eugène Carrière, [n.p.] 1931, p. 39; exhib. cat. Eugène Carrière et le Symbolisme, Paris (Orangerie) 1949-50, p. 74, no. 59, with extensive literature; Van Gogh Bulletin 8 (1993), no. 4, pp. 12-13; De Leeuw 1994, p. 252.

[p. 182]

Corcos, Vittorio Matteo
Italian, 1859-1933

Contemplation (‘En prière’) c. 1889
Oil on canvas, 85.8 × 79 cm
Signed at lower left: V. Corcos
S 294 M/1974

Corcos worked in Paris from 1880 to 1886, supplying work for Goupil & Cie. This brought him into contact with Theo van Gogh, to whom he dedicated a Portrait study of a young woman: ‘A M.Th. v. Gogh souvenir de Corcos Paris 84’, which is now also in the Van Gogh Museum. Contemplation was probably painted a little later. It was reproduced in L'Illustration of 1889, so it can tentatively be assumed that it was executed around then. Corcos, who had made his name as a painter of beautiful young women, came up with a highly original composition for this picture. The extreme close-up effect, however, has been exaggerated by a later modification. Originally the canvas must have been larger, for the strips wrapped around the stretcher are also painted. It is not known whether the picture was reduced in size by the artist or by someone else. The young woman, possibly a widow, is dressed in black and is kneeling with a prayer-book in her hand. An older woman is seated behind her, and at the back of the church there is the gleaming gold of an altar.

The motif of a beautiful young widow in prayer was a favourite of fashionable painters in the last quarter of the 19th century. Corcos's compatriot Mosé Bianchi had it in his repertoire for 20 years, and Jean Béraud also painted it on several occasions.

Provenance London (Christie's), 14 June 1974, lot 5; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1974).

Literature ‘En prière peint par M. Corcos,’ L'Illustration (1889), no. 2440, p. 464; Lili Jampoller, ‘Vittorio Corcos,’ Bulletin of the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh 4 (1975), no. 2, pp. 2-3; Van Uitert 1987, pp. 102-03, 313; Gianna Piatoni et al., exhib. cat. Ottocento / Novecento, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) 1988, no. 45; De Leeuw 1994, pp. 84-85.

Couture, Thomas
French, 1815-1879

A realist 1865
Oil on canvas, 46 × 38.1 cm
Signed at lower right: T.C.
S 387 M/1987 (colour pl. p. 150)

Thomas Couture provided a detailed description of his Réaliste in the Méthode et entretiens d'atelier of 1867: ‘I am depicting the interior of a studio of our time; it has nothing in common with the studios of earlier periods in which you could see the fragments of the finest antiquities. [...] But thanks to modern progress in matters of art, I have little to depict because we have the most simple accoutrements and besides, the gods have changed.

Laocoon has been replaced by a cabbage, the feet of the Gladiator by a candlestick covered with tallow or by a shoe.’ Rebelling against the spirit of his time, Couture tried to demonstrate that the gratuitous imitation of nature by the Realists lacked everything which made art Art: refinement in representation, exalted subjects, and imagination. This version, formerly in the collection of William H. Vanderbilt, is a study for a finished but considerably less spontaneous work in the National Gallery in Dublin, on which the painter inscribed the title ‘Un réaliste.’ A drawing for the whole composition and several other drawings of details exist in a private collection in Boston.

Provenance William H. Vanderbilt; Cornelius II Vanderbilt; on loan to The Metropolitan Museum, New York (1886-1903); New York (Parke-Bernet), 18 April 1945, lot 15; G. MacCullough Miller; Flora Whitney Miller; New York (Sotheby's), 5 May 1987, lot 34; pur-

[p. 183]

chased by the Van Gogh Museum with support from the Vincent van Gogh Foundation and the Vereniging Rembrandt at Art Gallery Bob P. Haboldt & Co., New York (1987).

Literature Edward Strahan (ed.), The art treasures of America being the choicest works of art in the public and private collections of North America, 3 vols., Philadelphia 1879, vol. 3, pp. 107-08; Camille Mauclair (ed.), Thomas Couture, 1815-1879, Paris 1937, facing p. 97; John Rewald, The history of Impressionism, New York 1973, p. 24; Albert Boime, Thomas Couture and the eclectic vision, New Haven & London 1980, pp. 330-35; Sarah Faunce and Linda Nochlin, Courbet reconsidered, New York 1989, p. 104; Van Cogh Bulletin 4 (1989), no. 4, pp. 1-2; De Bodt 1989, p. 250; Vereniging Rembrandt: Nationaal Fonds Kunstbehoud, Jaarverslag (1989), pp. 56-57; Acquisitions 1991, pp. 22-23, no. 68; exhib. cat. Philippe Rousseau 1816-1887, Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh) 1993, no. 28; De Leeuw 1994, pp. 26-27.

Delporte, Charles
Belgian, b. 1928

Portrait of Vincent van Gogh 1972
Oil on structured linoleum on chipboard, Ø 60 cm
Signed at lower centre: Delporte
S 358 M/1972

Charles Delporte, who wavers between Surrealism and Magic Realism, has displayed his admiration for Vincent van Gogh in many works. This one, which is painted on a small table-leaf, entered the museum's collection thanks to Mark Edo Tralbaut, the Belgian Van Gogh specialist.

Provenance Donated to the Van Gogh Museum by the artist (1972).

Literature Raymond Cogniat, Deiporte: tendances, Paris 1977, no. 57; J. Collard, Deiporte: aquarelles, Leiden 1987, p. 56.

Denis, Maurice
French, 1870-1943

The two sisters (fragment of
‘L'intruse’) 1891
Oil on canvas, 40.5 × 32.5 cm
Signed and dated at upper left with vertical
monogram: MAUD 91 S 423 V/1991 (colour pl. p. 163)

This painting was originally part of a larger work that was based on L'intruse, a play by Maurice Maeterlinck. The artist eventually cut it up into a number of smaller pieces, probably because it had proved unsalable. Denis evidently considered this fragment to be the most successful, and he made a special frame for it that repeats the decorative floral motif of the background. The backs of the other pieces of canvas were used for new paintings. The complete work is reproduced in the lithograph that Denis made for the programme accompanying the performance of the play at Paul Fort's Théâtre d'Art. In it Denis shows ‘three daughters, their father and uncle [meeting] at the blind grandfather's. Each senses the threatening danger that the old man recognises: the frightening approach of death, the intruder who has just taken the woman in labour and her child.’

It has been assumed that the work is a portrait of Marthe Meurier, Denis's fiancée whom he was to marry in 1893, and her sister Eva. The idealisation of the faces makes such an identification impossible, but the great resemblance between the two women makes the title The two sisters acceptable.

Provenance Iseult Alban d'Andogue de Ferrière; Baronness de Montesquiou; private collection, Paris; purchased by the Vincent van Gogh Foundation at Galerie Hopkins-Thomas, Paris (1991).

Literature Exhib. cat. La Revue Blanche: Paris in the days of Post-Impressionism and Symbolism, New York (Wildenstein) 1983, p. 62; exhib. cat. Au temps des Nabis, Paris (Galerie Huguette Berès) 1990, p. 45; exhib. cat. Gauguin et les Nabis, Tokyo (Parthénon Tama) 1990-91, pp. 40-41; Acquisitions 1991, pp. 54-55, 69; exhib. cat. Die Nabis: Propheten der Moderne, Zürich (Kunsthaus) 1993, no. 39; De Leeuw 1994, p. 249; exhib. cat. Maurice Denis, Lyon (Musée des Beaux-Arts), Cologne (Wallraf-Richartz Museum), Liverpool (Walker Art Gallery) & Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) 1994-95, no. 42.

Gachet, Paul Ferdinand
French, 1828-1909

On the old road at Auvers-sur-Oise 1873
Oil on canvas, 40.5 × 54 cm
Unsigned
S 336 V/1966

Dr Paul Ferdinand Gachet of Auvers-sur-Oise, who became a friend of Van Gogh, was himself quite a talented amateur painter and etcher. He worked under the pseudonym Paul van Rijssel, which is a reference to his birthplace, Lille (called Rijssel in Dutch and Flemish). This view of an old unpaved street in Auvers-sur-Oise, a subject that the artist

[p. 184]

depicted several times, is inscribed ‘Avril 1873’ on the back, probably in Gachet's own hand, together with the interlaced monogram ‘PVR’. Gachet was a leading collector of the Impressionists and, as this picture shows, he also painted in their style.

Provenance Paul Ferdinand Gachet, Auvers-sur-Oise; Paul Gachet Jr, Auvers-sur-Oise; Galerie Valentien, Stuttgart; purchased by the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1966).

Literature Van Uitert 1987, p. 361.

Gogh, Vincent van
Dutch, 1853-1890

Beach at Scheveningen 1882
Oil on canvas, 34.5 × 51 cm
Unsigned
S 416 M/1990

This Scheveningen seascape with its ‘thick, clumsy execution,’ as the German critic Meier-Graefe wrote in 1906, was one of Vincent van Gogh's first exercises in painting. The canvas, which was painted during a week of bad weather in August 1882, shows a moment just before a storm, when the sea



was ‘almost more imposing than it was during the storm itself,’ as Van Gogh wrote in a letter of around 19 August [259/226]. The fishing boat seems to lie dangerously deep in the choppy water, and the well-observed, turbulent waves and the scudding clouds do indeed suggest a gathering storm. This work was originally painted on cardboard or paper, but was then strengthened by putting it onto a panel. The panel was later removed, damaging the cardboard, which was then transferred to canvas. The painting suffered badly from this rough treatment, but regained its original charm when it was restored in 1992.

Provenance Theo van Gogh; Johanna van Gogh-Bonger; Oldenzeel gallery, Rotterdam; Mr G. Ribbius Peletier, Utrecht; on loan to the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, until 1990; bequeathed to the Van Gogh Museum by Miss A.E. Ribbius Peletier, Scheveningen (1990).

Literature Julius Meier-Graefe, ‘Über Vincent van Gogh,’ Sozialistische Monatshefte 1 (February 1906), p. 146; exhib. cat.. Van Gogh en Den Haag, The Hague (Haags Historisch Museum) 1950, no. 157; De la Faille 1970, p. 44, no. 4; exhib. cat. The Hague School, London (Royal Academy of Arts) 1983, no. 148; Van Gogh Bulletin 5 (1990), no. 1, pp. 11-12; Hulsker 1989, p. 51, no. 187; Acquisitions 1991, pp. 38-39, 70; De Leeuw 1994, p. 51.

Avenue with poplars in autumn 1884
Oil on canvas on panel, 98.5 × 66 cm
Unsigned
S 141 M/1977 (colour pl. p. 158)

Autumn was Van Gogh's favourite season, and in Nuenen he made countless attempts at capturing the essence of the autumn landscape. He wanted to earn plaudits for his rendering of the special light of autumn and the glowing colours of the foliage, in which he demonstrated his recent mastery of the laws of colour.

This avenue of poplars is a fine example of his efforts at that time. His touch is not very refined, but the colours are superb. The empty foreground is a typical Van Gogh motif, and the arresting black figure was also a standard element in his repertoire. This work is almost certainly the one that Van Gogh described in a letter written at the end of October 1884: ‘a rather large study of an avenue of poplars, with yellow autumn leaves, the sun casting sparkling spots here and there on the leaves that have fallen to the ground, alternating with the long shadows of the tree-trunks. At the end of the road is a small cottage, and over it all the blue sky through the autumn leaves’ [469/383].

Provenance Oldenzeel gallery, Rotterdam; J G.L. Nolst Trénité, Rotterdam (1904); W. Nolst Trénité, Rotterdam;

[p. 185]

heirs of W. Nolst Trénité, Rotterdam; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum with support from the Vereniging Rembrandt (1977).

Literature Annet Tellegen, ‘De populierenlaan bij Nuenen van Vincent van Gogh,’ Bulletin Museum Boymans-van Beuningen 18 (1967), no. 1, pp. 8-15; De la Faille 1970, p. 84, no. 122; V.W. van Gogh, ‘Populierenlaan 1884, Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890),’ Vereniging Rembrandt tot behoud en vermeerdering van kunstschatten in Nederland (1976), pp. 57-59; exhib. cat. Vincent van Gogh in zijn Hollandse jaren, Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh) 1981, no. 129; Van Uitert 1987, p. 317; exhib. cat. Schilderijen en tekeningen uit Etten en Nuenen, 's-Hertogenbosch (Noordbrabants Museum) 1988, no. 87; exhib. cat. Vincent van Gogh, Rome (Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea) 1988, no. 7; exhib. cat. Da Van Gogh a Schiele: l'Europa espressioniste, 1880-1918, Verona (Palazzo Forti) 1989, pp. 97, 264; Hulsker 1989, pp. 120, 122-23, no. 522; De brieven van Vincent van Gogh, ed. Han van Crimpen and Monique Berends-Albert, 4 vols., The Hague 1990, vol. 3, no. 469 (383); Walther 1990, vol. 1, pp. 50-51; exhib. cat. Van Gogh in England, London (Barbican Art Gallery) 1992, no. 24; De Leeuw 1994, pp. 60-61.

Stuffed kalong 1886
Oil on canvas, 41 × 79 cm
Unsigned
S 136 V/1973

This stuffed kalong (flying-fox or fox-bat) is an odd subject to find in Van Gogh oeuvre. It is generally dated to late 1886, in the artist's Paris period, and was described by one enthusiastic critic in 1904 as a ‘vampire’ and praised for its ‘hellish beauty.’ The museum acquired it from the Philips Collection in 1973.

Van Gogh made a few other studies of mounted animals in Paris: a small painting of a kingfisher and two drawings of an owl. Several sketches of swallows may also have been drawn from dead models.

Provenance Theo van Gogh; Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, Amsterdam; Oldenzeel gallery, Rotterdam; A.F. Philips, Eindhoven; A.H.E.M. Philips-de Jongh; purchased by the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1973).

Literature De la Faille 1970, p. 178, no. 177a; Van Uitert 1987, p. 328; Hulsker 1989, p. 262, no. 1192; Walther 1990, vol. 1, p. 199; exhib. cat. The age of Vincent van Gogh: Dutch painting 1880-1895, Glasgow (The Burrell Collection) 1991, no. 24; exhib. cat. De schilders van Tachtig: Nederlandse schilderkunst, 1880-1895, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) 1991, no. 39.

Factories seen from a hillside c. 1886-87
Oil on canvas, 21 × 46.5 cm
Unsigned
S 133 M/1970

This intimate vista of an industrial part of Paris was Van Gogh's second nocturne. It was originally owned by Andries Bonger, Theo's brother-in-law. It is difficult to give it a precise date, but the bare trees suggest that it was painted in the autumn or winter of 1886.

The canvas was acquired in 1970 from Mrs F.W.M. Bonger-van der Borch van Verwolde, Bonger's second wife, who felt that it belonged in the planned Van Gogh Museum, which opened in 1973. ‘I know plenty of Americans who would like to have it,’ she wrote, ‘but it would be a nice idea if it were to hang in the Amsterdam museum as a sample of the Paris period.’ She also gave the museum the correspondence between Père Tanguy and her husband, as well as Bonger's letters to his parents.

Provenance Andries Bonger; Mrs F. Bonger-van der Borch van Verwolde, Almen; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1970).

Literature De la Faille 1970, p. 135, no. 266a; exhib. cat. André Bonger en zijn kunstenaarsvrienden, Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet) 1972, no. 111; B. Welsh-Ovcharov, Vincent van Gogh: his Paris period, 1886-1888, Utrecht & The Hague 1976, p. 232; Van Uitert 1987, p. 329; Hulsker 1989, p. 271, no. 1223; exhib. cat. Impressionismus in Deutschland, Bremen (Kunsthalle) & Fukuoka (Fukuoka Art Museum) 1990, no. 50; Walther 1990, vol. 1, p. 219; De Leeuw 1994, p. 134.

Enclosed field with the Alpilles in the background 1890
Oil on canvas, 37.5 × 30.5 cm
Unsigned
S 417 M/1990 (colour pl. p. 159)

This appealing landscape shows the view that Van Gogh enjoyed from his room in the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint Rémy. We see an enclosed wheatfield with the Alpilles in the background, trees in blossom at their foot. The Van Gogh Museum also has a drawing of exactly the same scene - a detailed sketch with colour annotations.

[p. 186]

The sheet is not a preliminary study for the canvas; both painting and drawing are undoubtedly studies for a more ambitious work. The painting served as a colour study, the drawing as a compositional sketch, on which the future colour scheme was indicated in even finer detail.

The painting is dated to June 1889 in the oeuvre catalogues of De la Faille and Hulsker, and to September of that year in the exhibition catalogue Van Gogh und die Moderne. However, since the trees are in full blossom it seems more likely that it was painted in the spring. This points to February 1890, which is when the first trees burst into blossom in Provence. Van Gogh was indeed preoccupied with that subject just before he suffered a fresh attack of his illness.

Provenance Theo van Gogh; Johanna van Gogh-Bonger; Oldenzeel gallery, Rotterdam; Mr G. Ribbius Peletier, Utrecht; bequeathed to the Van Gogh Museum by Miss A.E. Ribbius Peletier, Scheveningen (1990).

Literature De la Faille 1970, p. 279, no. 723; Hulsker 1989, p. 396, no. 1722; Walther 1990, vol. 2, p. 515; Roland Dorn et al., exhib. cat. Vincent van Gogh und die Moderne, 1890-1914, Essen (Museum Folkwang) & Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) 1990, no. 52; Acquisitions 1991, pp. 42-43, 71; De Leeuw 1994, p. 224.

Guigou, Paul
French, 1834-1871

Landscape at Saint-Paul-la-Durance 1869
Oil on panel, 22 × 46.1 cm
Signed and dated at lower right: Paul Guigou 69
S 422 M/1991

Around 1850, artists from Provence became increasingly conscious of the natural and cultural beauty of their region. Painters like Monticelli, Loubon and his pupil Guigou recorded the robust charm of the landscape in their work. Among these - at least in the eyes of the Provençal poet Frédéric Mistral - Guigou was the best at ‘painting the clarity of our beautiful land, its rugged poetry and granular soil. With great sincerity of vision, he has made a true and faithful portrait of his small nation.’

Throughout his brief career, Guigou found his subjects by the banks of the river Durance, especially around the village Saint-Paul-la-Durance, located in eastern Provence near the Alps.

Provenance Maurice Jourdan, Paris (1927); New York (Sotheby's), 25 May 1991, lot 21; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1991).

Literature Acquisitions 1991, pp. 28-29, 71; Gazette des Beaux-Arts 119 (March 1992), p. 96; De Leeuw 1994, p. 93.

Haverman, Hendrik Johannes
Dutch, 1857-1928

Portrait of Maria Louisa Birnie 1893
Oil on canvas, 180.4 × 86.9 cm
Signed at lower left: Haverman 1893
S 445 M/1994

Haverman, an Amsterdam painter who studied under Allebé at the National Academy of Art, was one of the most successful portraitists of his day. Faithful to the academy's traditional teaching, he had a delicate, precise manner. This is immediately



apparent in this portrait, and when it was exhibited at the Pulchri Studio society in The Hague in 1895 it was the precision that struck one critic: ‘Not once do we see a brushstroke that hints that a tremor of feeling moved the hand, not one sign of nervousness, of dash, nowhere a personal note.’ Many people regarded this as the best portrait Haverman had done up until that time. He himself was convinced that he had produced a brilliant piece of work, for in 1913 he submitted it to the 11th Internationale Kunstaustellung in the Glaspalast in Munich. A label on the back shows that it then still belonged to Haverman.

The sitter is the artist's sister-in-law. Haverman was married to Carolina Birnie (1864-1933), who was also a painter. Maria Louisa, Carolina's younger sister, was born in 1866, so she was 27 years old when this portrait was painted.

Provenance Private collection (1913); Amsterdam (Sotheby's), 20 April 1993, lot 577; Richard Bionda, Purmerend; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1994).

Literature G., ‘Pulchri Studio,’ De Nederlandsche Spectator, 23 March 1895; ‘Tentoonstelling van werken van H.J. Haverman,’ Dagblad van Zuid-Holland en 't Hage, 8 November 1903.

[p. 187]

Hawkins, Louis Welden
French, 1849-1910

Innocence c. 1895
Oil on canvas, 73 × 50.4 cm
Signed at lower centre: L. WELDEN HAWKINS
S 427 M/1991

Louis Welden Hawkins made his debut in Paris in 1881 with a conventional, realistic work called The orphans. He later charted a more Symbolist course, and from 1892 even exhibited regularly at the Salons of the Rose+Croix. Innocence typifies the subject-matter that interested him at the time. The central figure in this allegory, which is related in style to the Pre-Raphaelite Rossetti, is Innocence, personified by the woman with the olive branches in the foreground. This femme fragile is confronted by Temptation, the femme fatale behind her, who is



identified as such by her coiling, Medusan hair. She is offering her innocent counterpart an apple, which is the symbol of both the fall of man and worldly power. The contrast between innocence and sin is also reflected in the juxtaposition of lilies in the foreground, the traditional symbol of purity, and the Whore of Babylon riding the seven-headed dragon in the background, which stands for the seven cardinal sins (Revelation 17:3-4).

Provenance Captain Coventry; London (Christie's), 3 February 1902, lot 81 (unsold); London (Christie's), 2 June 1990, lot 65; London (Christie's), 25 October 1991, lot 67; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1991).

Literature Van Gogh Bulletin 8 (1993), no. 3, cover and p. 9; Lucas Bonekamp, exhib. cat. Louis Welden Hawkins, 1849-1910, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) 1993, no. 8; De Leeuw 1994, p. 254.

Self-portrait 1906
Oil on canvas, 78 × 71.5 cm
Signed and dated at upper centre:
LOUIS. WELDEN. HAWKINS. 06 PARIS
S 435 M/1993

Hawkins was 57 and in the twilight of his career when he painted this self-portrait. He was not unfamiliar with the genre, for in 1897 he had exhibited another self-portrait at the Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. Here he is seen at work, his brush at the ready. He is dressed not in everyday clothes but as a man of the world. The portrait is painted with a free, impressionistic touch, but the markedly anatomical detailing of the hand betrays Hawkins's academic training. Several of his landscapes can be seen in the background, together with the frame of one of his ‘portrait masks,’ which had brought him some fame. He was evidently rather fond of this self-portrait, for

[p. 188]

in 1907 he submitted it to the Salon of the Société Nationale in Paris (no. 15).

Provenance Heirs of L.W. Hawkins, Paris (1983); Galerie Chéreau, Paris (1992); purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1993).

Literature Gilles Almy, Louis Welden Hawkins, peintre (1849-1910) (Mémoire de maîtrise, Paris & Nanterre 1983), no. 92; Van Gogh Bulletin 8 (1993), no. 2, p. 8; Lucas Bonekamp, exhib. cat. Louis Welden Hawkins, 1849-1910, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) 1993, no. 15; De Leeuw 1994, pp. 254-55.

Isaäcson, Jozef J.
Dutch, 1859-1942

Boaz and the kinsman
Oil on canvas, 112.5 × 112.5 cm
Unsigned, inscription (in Hebrew, but translated here) at upper right: Therefore the kinsman said unto Boaz, Buy it for thee.
S 361 M/1972

The Amsterdam artist Jozef Isaäcson, a pupil and friend of Meyer de Haan, lived in Paris from 1888 to 1890, where he studied the work of the avantgarde and became friendly with Theo van Gogh. In 1890 he wrote the first critique of Vincent's work, published in the Dutch periodical De Portefeuille. As an artist he specialised in oriental subjects, drawing his inspiration from trips he made to Egypt in 1896 and 1905.

The subject of this painting, the frame of which was probably designed by the artist as well, can be unravelled from the Hebrew inscription on the wall at upper right, which is from Ruth 4:8. Isaäcson has depicted the moment when the marriage between Boaz and Ruth was confirmed. The man on the right had a claim to her but declared that he did not wish to exercise it. He sealed the transaction by taking off his shoe and giving it to Boaz, according to custom: ‘Therefore the kinsman said unto Boaz, Buy it for thee.’ It is difficult to give a precise date for the painting, but it was probably executed after 1905.

Provenance Bought by the Van Gogh Museum at an unknown auction (1972).

Literature Pauline I. de Haan, J.J. Isaacson. Leven, werk, kritieken (master's thesis), [n.p.] 1969; Van Uitert 1987, p. 351.

Israëls, Isaac Lazarus
Dutch, 1865-1934

Woman standing in front of Van Gogh's ‘Sunflowers’: homage to Van Gogh c. 1920 Oil on canvas, 70.5 × 50.5 cm Signed at lower left: Isaac Israäls
S 233 V/1971

Jo van Gogh-Bonger lent Van Gogh's Yellow house and Still life with sunflowers to Isaac Israëls for a while in 1919. Both works feature in paintings by Israëls, especially the flower still life. Jo van Gogh owned several versions of the Sunflowers at the time, and this must be the one that now hangs in the National Gallery in London. There the horizontal line dividing the two parts of the composition is blue, as it is in Israëls's picture, whereas the variant in the Van Gogh Museum has a brown line.

One strange feature of this painting is that the still life has been reversed. In all the other works by Israëls in which Van Gogh's canvas appears, such as the painting at Heino (Hannema-De Stuers Fundatie), it is depicted the right way round. A possible explanation is provided by the traditional practice painters used to assess the composition of a painting: it was successful if it was still in balance when reversed. By painting Van Gogh's Sunflowers in this way Israëls was demonstrating how balanced a canvas it is, and it is perhaps this that is his ‘homage to Van Gogh.’

Provenance Amsterdam (Frederik Muller), 20 November 1923, lot 135; Mrs L.A. Nypels, Warmond; Tjerk Wiegersma, Deurne; purchased by the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1971).

Literature Exhib. cat., Isaac Israëls, Leiden (Lakenhal) 1950, no. 114; exhib. cat. Boom, bloem en plant, Dordrecht (Dordrechts Museum) 1955, no. 68; Anna Wagner, 143 maal Isaac Israëls, [n.p., n.d.], pp. 114, 124, no. 155; exhib. cat. Natures mortes hollandaises 1550-1950, Liège (Musée des Beaux-Arts) 1955, no. 37; exhib. cat. Het Hollandsche stilleven, Eindhoven (Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum) 1957, no. 37; Anna Wagner, ‘Enkele Van Gogh schilderijen in het werk van Isaac Israëls,’ Museumjournaal 7 (1961), pp. 131-35, nos. 5-6; exhib. cat. 143 maal Isaac Israëls, Zeist (Zeister Slot) & Dordrecht (Dordrechts Museum) 1974, no. 105; exhib. cat. Isaac Israëls. Schilderijen, aquarellen, pastels, tekeningen en grafiek, Dordrecht (Dordrechts Museum) 1985, no. 58; Van Uitert 1987, pp. 351-52; J.F. Heijbroek, ‘Het Rijksmuseum voor Moderne Kunst van Willem Steenhoff. Werkelijkheid of Utopie?,’ Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 39 (1991), no. 2, p. 205; exhib. cat. Vincent van Gogh and Japan, Kyoto (The National Museum of Modern Art) & Tokyo (Setagaya Art Museum) 1992, no. 43; De Leeuw 1994, p. 264.

[p. 189]

Israëls, Jozef
Dutch, 1824-1911

Peasant family at table 1882 Oil on canvas, 71 × 105 cm
Signed at lower left: Jozef Israëls
S 383 V/1987

Jozef Israëls made numerous paintings of peasant families eating. Van Gogh saw one such Peasant family at table, as recorded in a letter he wrote to Theo on 11 March 1882. In it he gave his impressions of the paintings that hung at the Hague branch of Goupil's art gallery and were intended for the Paris Salon, mentioning Israëls's painting en passant: ‘And yet, there was another Israëls, a small one with, I think, five or six figures, a worker's family sitting at a table’ [210/181]. The grouping of the figures around the table does display some similarity with The potato eaters, and may have contributed to its conception.

The large 1876 Glasgow version of this subject, called The frugal meal, has often been regarded as the one that Van Gogh saw. In 1882, however, that painting was already in a Scottish collection. It has been supposed that the present painting is too large to be identified with the one Van Gogh encountered in The Hague. It should be noted that the other picture by Israëls on view at Goupil's, also described by Van Gogh in glowing terms, was Dialogue silencieux (Philadelphia Museum of Art), a work which



measures 152 × 175 cm, so even a painting the size of the one in the Van Gogh Museum must have seemed small by comparison. A sketch, probably made after the painting by Israëls himself for the purpose of reproduction, appeared in Grands peintres français, published by Goupil in 1884. Since it can be assumed that the painting illustrated had been with the firm, it is very likely that this picture was one of the meal scenes that were there before 1884.

Provenance George I. Seney (sale New York, American Art Association, 11-13 February 1891, lot 181); M. Knoedler & Co., New York; Charles T. Yerkes (sale New York, American Art Association, 5 April 1910, lot 28); M. Knoedler & Co., New York; Anonymous (New York, Parke-Bernet, 16 May 1939, lot 244); E. Benjamin (1939); Rachel Salmanowitz (1986); New York (Sotheby's), 24 February 1987, lot 112; purchased by the Vincent van Gogh Foundation at Leslie Smith, The Hague (1987).

Literature John Sillevis et al., exhib. cat. Die Haager Schule, Mannheim (Kunsthalle) & The Hague (Haags Gemeentemuseum) 1988, pp. 138-41; Van Gogh Bulletin 5 (1990), no. 2, pp. 12-13; exhib. cat. Van Gogh and The Hague, The Hague (Haags Historisch Museum) 1990, p. 155 (ill.); exhib. cat. Van Gogh e la Scuolo dell'Aia, Florence (Palazzo Medici Riccardi) 1991, p. 122; Acquisitions 1991, pp. 26-27, 71; Louis van Tilborgh et al., The potato eaters, Zwolle 1993, no. 3, with extensive literature; Tokyo 1993, no. 20; De Leeuw 1994, p. 46.

Unloading barges 1902
Oil on canvas, 108.9 × 151.5 cm
Unsigned
S 419 V/1991

A photograph of the 78-year-old Israëls in his studio published in the Wereldkroniek on 8 February 1902 shows this painting, still unfinished, on the artist's easel. On 12 November of that year Israëls wrote to the art dealer J. Slagmulder that he was so pleased with the canvas that he wanted to have it reproduced. Although the painting comes from Israëls's late period, it is based on sketches that he seems to have made in Voorburg some years earlier (Groningen, Groninger Museum). The subject also inspired two watercolours. One was bought by the painter H.W. Mesdag at an exhibition of the Dutch Drawing Society in 1902 and is now in the collection of the Mesdag Museum; the other is known from a reproduction in Max Eisler's monograph on Israëls. The painting acquired by the Van Gogh Museum was one of Israëls's most famous canvases, and at one time belonged to William Randolph Hearst, the American newspaper tycoon.

Provenance William Randolph Hearst; purchased by the Vincent van Gogh Foundation at Antiquitäten- und Auktionshaus J. Weiner, Munich (1991).

Literature Onze Kunst 2 (1903), pp. 35-36; Max Eisler, Josef Israëls, London 1924, fig. 72; Acquisitions 1991, p. 71; Van Gogh Bulletin 7 (1992), no. 1, p. 13.

[p. 190]

Jongkind, Johan Barthold
Dutch, 1819-1891

View at Grenoble 1885
Oil on canvas, 33.2 × 56.3 cm
Signed and dated at lower right: Jongkind 1885; inscribed and dated at lower left: Grenoble
2 Juin 1885
S 411 M/1990

Jongkind's View at Grenoble shows a bend in the river Isère. On the right are wooden floats moored in the Port de France, on the left rises Fort Rabot, and in the distance the snow-capped Alps shine above the mist. The mother-of-pearl sky is reflected in the river. The inscription at lower left appears to confirm that the painting depicts a specific time and place: ‘Grenoble 2 Juin 1885’. Jongkind often worked from watercolours he had made on the spot in his sketchbook. In this painting he combined details from two such sketches, dated 1 and 2 June 1885, composing the final picture in the studio.

Provenance Paris (Galerie Georges Petit), 3-4 December 1906, lot 55; private collection; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum with support from the Vincent van Gogh Foundation at Galerie Van Voorst van Beest, The Hague (1990).

Literature Victorine Hefting, Jongkind: sa vie, son oeuvre, son époque, Paris 1975, no. 786; Van Gogh Bulletin 6(1991), no. 1, p. 10; exhib. cat. The age of Van Gogh: Dutch painting 1880-1895, Glasgow (The Burrell Collection) 1991, no. 49; exhib. cat. De schilders van Tachtig: Nederlandse schilderkunst 1880-1895, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) 1991, no. 72; Acquisitions 1991, pp. 28-29, 71; Victorine Hefting, J.B. Jongkind: voorloper van het Impressionisme, Amsterdam 1992, p. 140; De Leeuw 1994, p. 96.

Kerssemakers, Anton
Dutch, 1846-1926

The bird-catcher 1885
Oil on canvas, 54 × 64 cm
Unsigned
S 363 M/1981

Although it no longer has a signature, an oral tradition has it that this painting used to bear the initials ‘A.K.’. This, together with the provenance (which is itself not entirely clear) led to its attribution to Anton Kerssemakers, an amateur artist who took lessons from Van Gogh in 1884-85. In 1955, Tralbaut even asserted that Van Gogh had retouched his ‘pupil's’ work in two places, but the picture itself provides no convincing evidence of this. Kerssemakers's initials have now vanished, and only worn areas remain at bottom right. Kerssemakers had a slightly variable, rather roving style, and it is not clear whether he really did paint this canvas.

Provenance The Reverend Kerssemakers, Helenaveen [?]; A. Glasbergen, Eindhoven; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum from a private owner (1981).

Literature Mark Edo Tralbaut, exhib. cat. Vincent van Gogh en zijn Hollandse tijdgenoten, Antwerp (Zaal C.A.W.) 1955, no. 27; ‘Eindhovenaar meent vroege v. Gogh in zijn bezit te hebben,’ Oost-Brabant, 9 July 1956; Van Uitert 1987, p. 354.

Laval, Charles
French, 1862-1894

Landscape on Martinique c. 1887
Oil on canvas, 59.7 × 73.1 cm
Unsigned
S 378 V/1982 (colour pl. p. 162)

This unsigned landscape was painted when Gauguin and Laval were staying on Martinique in 1887 after the failure of their Panama adventure. For a long time it was attributed to Gauguin, but in 1981 Bogomila Welsh convincingly assigned it to Laval on stylistic grounds. Laval's Martinique landscapes are far flatter and more decorative than Gauguin's. The flowing lines enclosing the different sections fit into each other like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, while Gauguin at this time was painting rounded figures and objects in three-dimensional settings. The painting used to belong to the heirs of Andries

[p. 191]

Bonger, and during the Second World War it was stored in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. After the war it was mistakenly believed to be part of V.W. van Gogh's collection, which was on loan to the museum. In 1973, when the Van Gogh Museum opened, the Vincent van Gogh Foundation bought the painting from its rightful owners.

Provenance Andries Bonger; Mrs F.W.M. Bonger-van der Borch van Verwolde; from 1940 to 1973 on loan to the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; purchased by the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1973).

Literature Exhib. cat. Collectie Theo van Gogh, Amsterdam (Stedelijk Museum) 1953, no. 27c; Georges Wildenstein, Gauguin, Paris 1964, no. 225; Wladyslawa Jaworska, Gauguin et l'Ecole de Pont-Aven, Neuchâtel 1971, p. 45; Bogomila Welsh-Ocharov, exhib. cat. Vincent van Gogh and the birth of Cloisonism, Toronto (Art Gallery of Ontario) & Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) 1981, no. 132; Van Uitert 1987, p. 356; De Leeuw 1994, p. 123.

Lhermitte, Léon Augustin
French, 1844-1925

Haymaking 1887
Oil on canvas, 215.9 × 264.2 cm
Signed and dated at lower right: L. Lhermitte 1887
S 424M/1991 (colour pl. p. 155)

Lhermitte called his painting La fenaison (‘haymaking’), thereby giving it a slightly programmatic dimension. The figures, who are not shown working but resting, are carefully positioned to form a curve leading into depth. The classical nature of the composition is particularly evident in the pose of the woman. She is seen from the back and appears to have been inspired by a similar figure by Raphael. However, the classical element goes still further. Haymaking depicts the three ages of man, each engaged in different activities and representing the cyclical continuity of work on the land. The old man holding a scythe confirms this reading of the picture. The painting was shown at the Salon of 1887 and at the Exposition Universelle two years later.

Lhermitte prepared this picture in the traditional way, composing it from studies done from life. There are also numerous variations that were made from one or more of those preliminary studies. Elements of the picture can be found in paintings (such as La fenaison, St Louis, Washington University Gallery of Art) and in pastels (such as Le repos, City of Perth Art Gallery).

The transparent painting technique also links this huge composition to Jules Bastien-Lepage, who died in his mid-thirties in 1884. He was widely regarded as Millet's successor as the chronicler of peasant life. With Haymaking Lhermitte made a powerful bid to be considered his heir.

Provenance Boussod, Valadon & Cie., Paris; Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, Buffalo, New York (1892-1943); New York (Parke-Bernet), 14 October 1943, lot 64; private American club; New York (Sotheby's), 17 October 1990, lot 17; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum with support from the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1991).

Literature New York (Sotheby's), 17 October 1990, lot 17; Monique Le Pelly Fonteny, Léon Augustin Lhermitte (1844-1925): catalogue raisonné, Paris 1991, no. 141, with extensive literature; Van Gogh Bulletin 7 (1992), no. 2, pp. 10-11; Ellen Reitsma, ‘De Aanwinst,’ Vrij Nederland, 5 September 1992, pp. 50-51; De Leeuw 1994, pp. 22-23.

Luce, Maximilien
French, 1858-1941

Landscape at Saint-Tropez 1893
Oil on panel, 16.5 × 25.3 cm
Signed at lower right: Luce
S 342 V/1966

According to the authors of the catalogue raisonné of Maximilien Luce's work, this small study dates from the artist's first visit to Saint-Tropez with Signac in 1893. The sketch, which was probably done from life, formed the basis for a more detailed Divisionist landscape, Saint-Tropez, Les Canoubiers, datable to 1895-97, and for some more ambitious compositions with bathers (Bouin-Luce and Bazetoux 1986, nos. 960, 961, 979).

Provenance H.A.D. Thomas, Amsterdam; bequeathed to the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1966).

Literature Jean Bouin-Luce and Denise Bazetoux, Maximilien Luce: catalogue de l'oeuvre peint, 2 vols., Paris 1986, vol. 2, no. 973; Van Uitert 1987, p. 357.

[p. 192]

Luce, Maximilien
(continued)

View of Le Mée c. 1896
Oil on pasteboard, 28 × 36.5 cm
Signed and dedicated at lower right: Luce A Me Pellet
S 375 V/1982

Le Mée is a small village in the Eure-et-Loire department. The painting is dedicated to the wife of Gustave Pellet, the main publisher of Toulouse-Lautrec's prints. In 1897, Pellet issued a colour lithograph after it in an edition of 60, so it can be assumed that the painting was made shortly before then. When the Vincent van Gogh Foundation bought the painting in 1977 the museum had an added stroke of luck when it was able to acquire an impression of the print.

Provenance G. Pellet, Paris; M. Exteens, Paris; Berne (Kornfeld und Klipstein), 15 May 1977, lot 37; purchased by the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1977).

Literature Exhib. cat. Choix d'une collection privée, Bern (Kornfeld & Klipstein) 1960, no. 57; Jean Bouin-Luce and Denise Bazetoux, Maximilien Luce: catalogue de l'oeuvre peint, 2 vols., Paris 1986, vol. 2, no. 530; Van Uitert 1987, p. 357.

Maris, Jacob
Dutch, 1837-1899

View of Montigny-sur-Loing 1869
Oil on canvas, 21.9 × 35.1 cm
Signed and dated at lower left. J. Maris 69 [?]
S 389 M/1989

Jacob Maris painted several landscapes while living in France from 1865 to 1871. This beautifully executed,



tranquil work shows the village of Montigny-sur-Loing, 15 kilometres from Marlotte, near the forest of Fontainebleau. Although the last digit of the date is barely legible, it is logical to read it as a ‘9’. In 1870, Maris used this study as the basis for a large view of Montigny which is now in the Boymans-van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam. As the critic Jan Veth noted, ‘the foreground alone is a little different in the definitive painting, and the scene as a whole is more evenly spread out.’ The canvas was exhibited at the Voor de Kunst society in Utrecht in 1907 by the Amsterdam art dealer C.M. van Gogh, an uncle of Vincent's. In addition to an affinity with Corot it has associations with landscapes by Charles Daubigny, who painted the same village (Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland).

Provenance Goupil, Paris; C.M. van Gogh, Amsterdam (1897); London (Sotheby's), 7 June 1989, lot 36; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1989).

Literature Jan Veth, Portretstudies en silhouetten, Amsterdam [1908], p. 170; De Bodt 1989, pp. 254-55; Van Gogh Bulletin 4 (1989), no. 4, n.p.; exhib. cat. Maris: een kunstenaarsfamilie, Laren (Singer Museum) 1991, no. 4; Acquisitions 1991, p. 71; De Leeuw 1994, p. 42.

Maris, Matthijs
Dutch, 1839-1917

Girl with goats 1875
Oil on canvas, 65.1 × 101.4 cm
Signed and dated at lower right: MM 75
S 412 M/1990 (colour pl. p. 154)

Girl with goats was painted in 1875 in Paris, where Maris had been living since May 1869. It forms the climax to a whole series of fairy-tale scenes in

[p. 193]

which dreamy, Mélisande-like princesses with flowing tresses tarry in magical forests with only lambs or goats for company. The canvas was soon hailed as a masterpiece. In 1919 the critic P. Haverkorn van Rijsewijk praised its ‘perfect compositional balance and superb distribution of light and shade,’ and quoted The Burlington Magazine, which had called the work ‘an idyll inadequately described by its prosy title.’

There are two pages of preliminary studies for the figures and composition of the Girl with goats in a sketchbook from Maris's Paris period that once belonged to Ernest Fridlander, an English painter and later biographer of Maris. That sketchbook has been in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam since 1980.

Provenance Robert Ramsey, Glasgow; Sir John Reid, Glasgow (until 1933); Mrs E.M. Salversen-Reid; London (Christie's), 30 March 1990, lot 479; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1990).

Literature Exhib. cat. Matthew Maris: a souvenir, London (The French Gallery) 1909, no. 13 (ill.); Frank Rinder, Glasgow Herald, 14 November 1917; exhib. cat. Matthew Maris (The French Gallery) 1917-18, pp. 16 and 137, fig. 14; exhib. cat. Matthew Maris, London (The French Gallery) 1917-18, no. 19; P. Haverkorn van Rijswijk, Onze Kunst (1919), p. 127; exhib. cat. Maris tentoonstelling, The Hague (Haags Gemeentemuseum) 1935-36, no. 191; H.E. van Gelder, Matthijs Maris, Amsterdam 1939, p. 44 (ill.); W. Arondéus, Matthijs Maris, de tragiek van den droom, Amsterdam 1939, pp. 106-07, fig. 96a; exhib. cat. Paintings from north-east homes, Aberdeen (Art Gallery) 1951, no. 73; exhib. cat. Meesters van de Haagse school, The Hague (Haags Gemeentemuseum) 1965, no. 66; exhib. cat. Matthijs Maris, The Hague (Haags Gemeentemuseum) 1974-75, no. 94; J.F. Heijbroek, ‘Tekeningen van Matthijs Maris uit het bezit van Ernest Fridlander,’ Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 33 (1985) no. 2, pp. 112-13; Acquisitions 1991, pp. 20-21, 71; exhib. cat. Maris: een kunstenaarsfamilie, Laren (Singer Museum) 1991, no. 59; De Leeuw 1994, p. 43.

Mesker, Theo
Dutch, 1853-1894

The lithographer 1872
Oil on canvas, 45 × 34.5 cm
Signed and dated at lower left: T. Mesker 1872
S 2 MM/1992

Mesker, a minor artist who lived in The Hague, offered this work for 175 guilders at the 1872 Exhibition of Living Masters (no. 220). The lithographer is patiently working on the stone, which is propped up against what appears to be a copy of the Dutch ‘States’ bible. He is copying a painting which is on the easel in front of him. Hanging on the wall is a copy of Rembrandt's Portrait of an officer (The Art Institute of Chicago).

This is a genre painting, but the figure of the lithographer is undoubtedly based on Johannes Jacobus Mesker, the artist's brother, who was a celebrated lithographer and contributed many reproductions to the magazine Kunstkronijk. He made several lithographs after Theo Mesker's paintings, and as the Kunstkronijk put it, the latter thus ‘never [needed] fear for the lithographic interpretation of his paintings.’

This painting originally belonged to the Hague collector E.J. Jacobson. It was auctioned in Paris after his death in 1876, and was bought for 120 francs by H.G. Tersteeg, a celebrated partner in the Goupil art gallery. It fetched only ten guilders more when Tersteeg's estate was sold in 1914.

Provenance E.J. Jacobson; Paris (Hôtel Drouot), 1876, lot 58; H.G. Tersteeg; The Hague (Boussod, Valadon & Cie), 1914, lot 48; Amsterdam (Christie's), 28 October 1992, lot 19; purchased and donated to the museum by the Friends of the Van Gogh Museum (1992).

Monet, Claude
see Anonymous

[p. 194]

Monticelli, Adolphe Joseph Thomas
French, 1824-1886

Festival in Venice
Oil on canvas, 50.3 × 100 cm
Signed at lower left: Monticelli
S 341 V/1966

After 1870, Monticelli painted dozens of imaginary scenes of festive groups like this one. They are often situated in a more distant past or contain allusions to stage plays. The amount of detail and the relatively delicate brushwork allow this picture to be dated to the early 1870s.

Provenance Coll. Dotel, Paris; Knoedler, New York (1959); E.J. van Wisselingh & Co., Amsterdam (1959); H.A.D. Thomas, Amsterdam (since 1959); bequeathed to the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1966).

Literature Not in Stammégna 1981/86; Van Uitert 1987, p. 359; De Leeuw 1994, p. 91.

‘Fête champêtre’
Oil on panel, 37 × 24 cm Signed at lower right: A. Monticelli
S 337 V/1966

Monticelli was caught up in the Rococo revival in the latter half of the 1850s. Many painters of the day drew their inspiration from the elegant paintings produced before the French Revolution, and especially from fêtes galantes by Watteau, Boucher



and their followers. Monticelli occasionally made a literal copy of an 18th-century model. In this particular case it was an as yet unidentified painting by Watteau or Lancret.

Provenance E.J. van Wisselingh & Co., (Amsterdam (1959); H.A.D. Thomas, Amsterdam (since 1959); bequeathed to the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1966).

Literature Stammégna 1981/86, vol. 2, no. 826; Van Uitert 1987, p. 359.

Garden with woman and dogs c. 1880
Oil on panel, 55.5 × 34.5 cm
Signed at lower right: Monticelli
S 338 V/1966

Elegant women out strolling with parasols and accompanied by graceful greyhounds are found in



many different combinations in Monticelli's oeuvre after 1871. His works are rarely dated, so it is only possible to hazard a guess based on the brushwork. This painting is stylistically very close to a work that is dated around 1880 (L'élégante au brûle-parfum, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, private collection).

Provenance E. Latil; J. Blot; C. Stulemeyer; H.A.D. Thomas, Amsterdam; bequeathed to the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1966).

Literature Not in Stammégna 1981/86; Van Uitert 1987, p. 359.

Landscape c. 1867-70
Oil on panel, 40 × 60 cm
Signed at lower right: Monticelli
S 340 V/1966

Monticelli settled in Paris in 1864, but three years later he moved to nearby Romainville. From there he made expeditions into the Ile de France to paint landscapes. In the background of this painting, beyond the rolling terrain, is a rocky outcrop of chalk, a distinctive feature of that region. The style is very similar to that of several other landscapes from this

[p. 195]

period, such as Verger en fleurs (Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum) and La palissade, which the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyons bought in 1869 on Corot's recommendation

The dating of this picture poses a problem. Like the one in the Stedelijk Museum, it must have been painted in the spring, since the trees are in blossom or bud. In February 1868, however, Monticelli had to return to Marseilles because of the death of his father, and he remained there until January 1869. In September 1870 he was forced to leave Romainville again, this time because of the advancing Prussian troops. This means that the painting could have been executed in the spring of 1867, 1869 or 1870.

Provenance E.J. van Wisselingh & Co., Amsterdam (1959); H.A.D. Thomas, Amsterdam (since 1959); bequeathed to the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1966).

Literature Exhib. cat. French painting of the XlXth century, Ottawa, Toronto & Montreal, 1934, no. 82; exhib. cat. Monticelli, Amsterdam (E.J. van Wisselingh & Co.) 1939, no. 3; not in Stammégna 1981/86; Van Uitert 1987, p. 359; Charles and Mario Garibaldi, Monticelli, Lausanne 1991, p. 59; De Leeuw 1994, p. 92.

Muslims in front of a mosque
Oil on panel, 44.5 × 40 cm
Signed at lower left: Monticelli
S 339 V/1966

Oriental figures in caftans and turbans crowding around the entrance to a mosque are found in many variations in Monticelli's oeuvre. They were not inspired by a visit to an Arab country but are orientalist fantasies, probably based on paintings or prints by other artists. On the evidence of the free handling of the paint most can be dated to the late 1870s.

Provenance E.J. van Wisselingh & Co., Amsterdam (1959); H.A.D. Thomas, Amsterdam (since 1959); bequeathed to the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1966).

Literature Exhib. cat. Monticelli, Amsterdam (E.J. van Wisselingh & Co.) 1939, no. 4; not in Stammégna 1981/86; Van Uitert 1987, p. 359; De Leeuw 1994, p. 90.

Morin, Charles Camille
French, 1846-1919

Landscape
Oil on canvas, 46 × 55 cm
Unsigned
S 349 V/1966

Morin is today an obscure artist. It is known only that he frequently exhibited at the Paris Salon in the 1890s, that he worked in the picturesque surroundings of Auvers-sur-Oise, and that, as far as can be discovered, he mainly painted landscapes in an Impressionist style. He was a close acquaintance of Paul Gachet, the doctor at Auvers who befriended Van Gogh. Two of Morin's paintings, including this one, have inscriptions on the stretchers testifying to the artist's ties with the Gachet. This particular one reads: ‘à Mlle Clémentine Gachet / affectueusement C. Morin / 24 Novembre 1909’. That was probably the year in which the painting was executed. ‘Clémentine’ is doubtless Marguerite Clémentine, Gachet's daughter.

Provenance Marguerite Clémentine Gachet, Auvers-sur-Oise; Galerie Valentien, Stuttgart; purchased by the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1966).

Literature Van Uitert 1987, p. 360.

Landscape
Oil on canvas, 38 × 46 cm
Signed at lower right: Morin
S 335 V/1966

The stretcher of this picture also has a dedication to Gachet's daughter which provides a clue to the dating of the work. It reads: ‘à Melle Clémentine Gachet/ bien amicalement C. Morin / 1911’.

Provenance Marguerite Clémentine Gachet, Auvers-sur-Oise; Galerie Valentien, Stuttgart; purchased by the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1966).

Literature Van Uitert 1987, p. 360.

Landscape near Auvers
Oil on canvas, 24 × 33 cm
Unsigned
S 334 V/1966

Provenance Gachet family, Auvers-sur-Oise; Galerie Valentien, Stuttgart; purchased by the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1966).

Literature Van Uitert 1987, p. 359.

[p. 196]

Myrbach (-Rheinfelden), Felician Freiherr von
Austrian, 1853-1940

The print shop 1884
Oil on canvas, 64.3 × 80.5 cm
Signed and dated at lower right: Myrbach 1884
S 432 M/1992 (colour pl. p. 153)

The print shop was painted in 1884, when Myrbach was living in Paris. It was exhibited at that year's Salon under the title Chez l'imprimeur en tailledouce, and was also reproduced in the catalogue. It is an excellent illustration of a late 19th-century printing works, and is done in a realistic style with a keen eye for detail.

Six presses stand in a row, with the printer's assistants engaged in different tasks. On the right a man is wiping excess ink off a plate, and on the left a boy is working the handle of a press. The centre of the composition is formed by an apprentice discussing the quality of a printed illustration with the master.

Provenance Private collection; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum gallery John H. Schlichte Bergen, Amsterdam (1992).

Literature Catalogue illustré du Salon 1884, no. 1790 and ill. on p. 193; Van Gogh Bulletin 8 (1993), no. 1, pp. 9-10; De Leeuw 1994, p. 82.

Poeckh, Theodore
German, 1839-1921

Portrait of an unknown woman 1884
Oil on canvas mounted on cardboard, 26.7 × 19.7 cm
Unsigned, dated at lower left: 20 Febr 84
S 433 M/1992

Theodore Poeckh was a painter of genre scenes and portraits. The woman's identity is unknown, but her portrait is dated to the day: ‘20 Febr. 1884’, which explains why she is so warmly dressed.

Provenance Private collection; donated to the Van Gogh Museum by Mr and Mrs J. Schlichte Bergen-Van Nierop, Amsterdam (1992).

Puvis de Chavannes, Pierre
French, 1824-1898

Saint Genevieve as a child in prayer c. 1874-76
Oil and pencil on paper, laid down on canvas, 136.5 × 76.2 cm
Signed and inscribed at lower left: au Comte Joseph Primoli affectueusement P. Puvis de C
S 438 M/1993 (colour pl. p. 156)

In 1874 Philippe de Chennevières, director of the Beaux-Arts, commissioned Puvis, along with 11 other artists, to decorate the Panthéon. The structure had been built as a church under Louis XV and dedicated to the patroness of Paris, Saint Genevieve. The decoration was intended to illustrate her life, and Puvis was asked to visualise ‘la vie pastorale de la jeune sainte.’

Puvis's murals show the historical Saint Genevieve in an Arcadian landscape, kneeling in prayer while a Gallic couple and a child look on. The inscription beneath the composition explains the scene: ‘From the tenderest age St Genevieve showed the signs of an ardent piety; continually in prayer, she struck surprise and admiration in all those who caught sight of her.’ Calling the composition a prologue to the entire cycle, Puvis described it as follows: ‘I have had the small Saint appear to a rustic couple, a woodcutter and his wife with their child [...]. I believe I was able - in order to avoid realism and in the interests of the emotional effect - to give the child in prayer a form and a garb more appropriate to an angel than to a real being, something more visionary than real; the halo that encircles her head completes the illusion. It is thus that she appears to the naively astonished group.’ The Paris public had the opportunity to admire the praying Genevieve at the Salon of 1876 before the canvas - measuring 4.62 × 2.21 metres - was installed in the Panthéon in May 1877. Puvis often made replicas of his finished murals.

The Fogg Art Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has a copy from 1879 of the same format as the composition shown here. The present work, however, is a preparatory study in oils of the type called a modello, presumably painted between 1874 and 1876. The artist presented the work ‘affectueusement’ to Count Joseph Napoleon Primoli, a great connoisseur.

Provenance Gift of the artist to Count Joseph Primoli; Henri Bloome; private collection, Switzerland (1946-84);

[p. 197]

Robert Miller Gallery, New York (1984-85); private collection, New York (1985-93); New York (Christie's), 18 February 1993, lot 12; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum with support from the Vereniging Rembrandt, the Vincent van Gogh Foundation, and the Ministry of Welfare, National Health and Culture (1993).

Literature Van Gogh Bulletin 8 (1993), no. 2, pp. 16-17; Ronald de Leeuw, ‘De heilige Geneviève als kind in gebed,’ Vereniging Rembrandt. Nationaal Fonds Kunstbehoud, Jaarverslag (1993), pp. 25-28; Frans van Burkom, ‘Puvis de Chavannes Ste Geneviève als kind in gebed,’ Jong Holland (1993), no. 4, pp. 15-19; Aimée Brown Price, exhib. cat. Puvis de Chavannes, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) 1994, no. 70; De Leeuw 1994, pp. 32-33; Eva Mendgen, et al. exhib. cat. In perfect harmony: picture and frame, 1850-1920, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) & Vienna (Kunstforum) 1995, no. 132.

Still life with fruit and flowers c. 1882
Oil on canvas, 44.5 × 59.5 cm
Signed and inscribed at upper left: à Eugène Benon P. Puvis de Chavannes
S 414 M/1990

Still lifes by Puvis de Chavannes are rare, and most are detail studies for larger works. This picture is dedicated to Eugène Benon (?-1894), a friend of the



artist and perhaps a painter as well. His portrait by Puvis of 1882 (private collection) includes an almost identical glass with flowers. This and stylistic details suggest that portrait and still life were made at the same time. A comparable study of individual fruits (private collection) with a dedication to Ary Renan, the son of the writer Ernest Renan, must also be dated around then.

Puvis de Chavannes often used fruit as an accessory in the ornamental borders of his large allegorical compositions and more intimate scenes like La toilette (London, The National Gallery) and Les enfants au verger (City College of New York). Pure still lifes, however, are a rarity in his oeuvre. Still life with fruit and flowers bears a superficial resemblance to the still lifes of Henri de Fantin-Latour, and shares with them the simple presentation of the fruit on a table covered with a white cloth.

Provenance Mrs Henri Puvis de Chavannes, Neuilly; Thomas Agnew, London; Sir Alexander Korda, London; Marlborough Fine Art, London; Paris (Hôtel Drouôt), 16 June 1954, lot 47; London (Sotheby's), 23 June 1981, lot 51; London (Sotheby's), 19 June 1990, lot 17; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1990).

Literature Aimée Brown Price, ‘Two portraits by Vincent van Gogh and two portraits by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes,’ The Burlington Magazine 117 (November 1975), p. 717; exhib. cat. Puvis de Chavannes, Paris (Grand Palais) & Ottawa (National Gallery of Canada) 1976-77, p. 10; Acquisitions 1991, pp. 32-33, 72; Aimée Brown Price, exhib. cat. Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) 1994, no. 90; De Leeuw 1994, p. 31.

The reader c. 1886-93
Oil and ink on paper, laid down on canvas, 55.6 × 46.1 cm
Signed at lower left: P. Puvis C
S 428 M/1992

This sketch, dated to the artist's last decade, shows a classical figure absorbed in reading a scroll. The olive-green background would have appealed to Vincent van Gogh, who thought that Puvis was better equipped ‘to explain olive trees’ [878/614a] to mankind than any other artist. The broad technique and the opacity of the dry pigments suggests that the painting should be dated to the 1890s. Brown Price has related it to the figure of Aeschylus with his scroll in the mural Dramatic poetry at the Boston Public Library of circa 1896.

Provenance Heirs of the artist; Mr and Mrs P. de Vaugelas, Paris; private collection, Paris; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum from Art Research Consultants Ltd., St. Helier (1992).

Literature A. Bleton, Lyon. Salon de 1896, Lyon 1896, no. 30; Marcelle Lagaisse, exhib. cat. Puvis de Chavannes et la peinture lyonnaise du XIX siècle, Lyon (Musée de Lyon) 1937, no. 54; Van Gogh Bulletin 8 (1993), no. 2, p. 16; Aimée Brown Price, exhib. cat. Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) 1994, no. 128; De Leeuw 1994, p. 33.

[p. 198]

Raffaëlii, Jean-François
French, 1850-1924

The veterans c. 1884
Oil on panel, 56 8 × 39.9 cm
Signed at lower left: J.F. Raffaëlii
S 415 M/1990

Raffaëlii occupies a controversial place in the history of late 19th-century art. Some regard him as a pompier, others see him as an anecdotal artist who effectively exploited the benefits of Impressionism without taking any of the risks. Raffaëlli's friend Degas made sure that he was able to exhibit with the Impressionists, but from the outset his inclusion among them was problematic. He was, however, highly regarded by Seurat, Signac, Van Gogh and Bernard, who considered him the discoverer of the Parisian banlieue.

The veterans shows the artist at his most attractive. The sober palette is only brightened by the red decoration of the man seated on the right. The three figures are well captured in their different poses. The two old men dressed in black with walking sticks appear to be crossing swords. The panel may be identical with the Discussion d'arme et de politique displayed at the 1884 Raffaëlii exhibition in Paris.

Provenance W. Blumenthal, Paris (1909); London (Sotheby-Parke Bernet), 30 November 1977, lot 215; British Rail Pension Fund until 1990 (on loan to the Doncaster Museum); London (Sotheby's), 19 June 1990, lot 48; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1990).

Literature Arsène Alexandre, Raffaëlii: peintre, graveur, sculpteur, Paris 1909, p. 113, pl. 15; Barbara Shinman Fields, Jean-François Raffaëlii, Ann Arbor 1979, p. 355; exhib. cat. Thirty-five paintings from the collection of the British Rail Pension Fund, London 1984, no. 27; Acquisitions 1991, pp. 30-31, 72; Van Gogh Bulletin 9 (1994), no. 1, pp. 12-13; De Leeuw 1994, pp. 102-03.

Rappard, Anthon van
Dutch, 1858-1892

Old Drenthe woman, seated c. 1882-83
Oil on canvas on panel, 90 × 50.5 cm
Unsigned
S 353 M/1974

On his trips to the impoverished and still relatively isolated province of Drenthe, where Max Liebermann and Anton Mauve also went in search of picturesque peasant subjects, Van Gogh's friend Anthon van Rappard began concentrating on the motifs that would come to typify his oeuvre. ‘Working-class’ figures, sometimes in groups at their daily labours, sometimes individually, are all carefully observed, as is this woman. The frontal positioning of the figure on a high chair is rigid and a little pedantic, like an academy study. The woman is seated with her knees wide apart in order to trap the heat from the foot-warmer under her skirt. Her large, work-roughened hands

[p. 199]

rest in her lap and her eyes are closed as she dozes off. The sitter was probably the resident of an almshouse in the village of Rolde called ‘Old Mother Jantine.’

This painting was first shown in Brussels in 1885, and in the exhibition catalogue Van Rappard gave her name as ‘Klinkers Jantine.’ The Rijksprentenkabinet (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) has two remarkably sensitive studies of the woman's head in conté crayon, and Van Rappard also made an etching of the subject of this painting, but seen from a slightly different viewpoint. An inscription on a proof of this etching (Utrecht, Centraal Museum) identifies the figure as an ‘old spinster in the almshouse at Rolde, Drenthe.’

Provenance L.W.R. Wenckebach (1934); Mrs Storm-Wenckebach; private collection; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum at the gallery Monet, Amsterdam (1974).

Literature Jaap Brouwer et al., exhib. cat. Anthon van Rappard: companion and correspondent of Vincent van Gogh: his life and all his works, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) 1974, no. 81; exhib. cat. Vincent van Gogh in zijn Hollandse jaren, Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh) 1981, no. 27; Van Uitert 1987, p. 361; exhib. cat. Vincent van Gogh, Rome (Galleria Nazionale D'Arte Moderna) 1988, no. 8; Tokyo 1994, no. 22; De Leeuw 1994, p. 48.

Redon, Odilon
French, 1840-1916

Village street in Samois 1888
Oil on paper, 42 × 30 cm
Signed at lower right: Odilon Redon
S 436 M/1992 (colour pl. p. 157)

Redon treasured this painting so much that he could not bear to part with it. In 1919, some years after his death, his widow sent it, together with 30 other paintings and 46 lithographs, to the art dealer J.H. de Bois in Haarlem for a large exhibition of works that had never been seen in Holland. After the exhibition it came into the possession of Maurits Gomperts, De Bois's brother-in-law.

The accuracy of the traditional title is confirmed by Redon's drawing of the same composition, which has the annotation ‘haut Samois’ at bottom left. However, this apparently realistic painting is probably more than just a record of a specific street under particular lighting conditions. The Redons spent the summers of 1888 and 1889 in the village of Samois on the Seine. The first visit was blighted by a tragedy when Redon saw his friend Emile Hennequin, an influential critic and champion of his work, drown in the river. It was a disaster that greatly affected him. Archival research has established that this painting dates from that fateful summer. The subject recurs several times in Redon's oeuvre. It is known from his letters that streets with old houses held a special meaning for him. A few years before, for example, he had given Hennequin some tips for a visit to Brittany: ‘Vannes is beautiful, sublime almost. There are old houses there that have made an indelible imprint on my memory. Nowhere has nature left a clearer trace of the insignificance of the human condition than on those so melancholy walls; how deserted and desolate it is.’

This small painting owes its haunting mood to the total absence of human life - an unreal effect which is underlined by the abstract patterns of light and shade. Redon evidently felt that a deserted street was the most fitting way of expressing the sense of desolation and the awareness of the triviality of the human condition that the tragedy of the summer of 1888 had awakened in his heart.

Provenance Camille Redon; J.H. de Bois (1919); M. Gomperts (1919); private collection, Aerdenhout (1925); private collection USA (1969); purchased by the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (1992).

Literature J.H. de Bois' Tweemaandelijksch Bulletin 2 (August 1919), no. 5; exhib. cat. De Bois, spring 1941; exhib. cat. Odilon Redon, The Hague (Haags Gemeentemuseum) 1957, no. 160; exhib. cat. Odilon Redon 1840-1916, London (The Mathiesen Gallery) 1959, no. 55; The Illustrated London News, 9 May 1959, p. 811; J.F. Heijbroek and E.L. Woudhuisen, Kunst, kennis en commercie: de kunsthandelaar J.H. de Bois (1878-1946), Amsterdam & Antwerp 1993, p. 212; Van Gogh Bulletin 8 (1993), no. 3, pp. 11-12; De Leeuw 1994, p. 246; exhib. cat. Odilon Redon 1840-1916, Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago), Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) & London (Royal Academy of Arts) 1994-95, pp. 168-69.

Rousseau, Philippe
French, 1816-1887

Still life with game 1887
Oil on canvas, 115.5 × 88.5 cm
Signed and dated at lower left: Ph. Rousseau 87
S 441 M/1993

Rousseau was mainly active during the Second Empire. His clients included Emperor Napoleon III and his court as well as James, Baron de Rothschild. The critic Théophile Gautier hailed Rousseau as a full-blooded Realist, and even the discriminating Baudelaire spoke of his early work in glowing terms. Rousseau's contemporaries regarded him as the 19th-century reincarnation of Chardin, who was his main source of inspiration, particularly in the second half of his career. Rousseau certainly borrowed freely from his 18th-century predecessor, both in composition and motifs. The silver goblet in this picture, for example, was taken from works like Chardin's Le gobelet d'argent in the Louvre.

Provenance Art gallery Noortman BV, Maastricht; donated to the Van Gogh Museum by the Friends of the Van Gogh Museum (1993).

Literature Ronald de Leeuw, exhib. cat. Philippe Rousseau 1816-1887, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) 1993, pp. 49, 69, no. 12; De Leeuw 1994, p. 39.

[p. 200]

Rousseau, Théodore
French, 1812-1867

Fontainebleau: les Gorges d'Apremont c. 1848
Oil and pencil on panel, 43.4 × 64 cm
Signed at lower right: Th Rousseau; inscribed on the back: Jean de Paris
S 444 V/1994

It is often difficult to say whether a painting by Rousseau is finished or not. This one looks like an ébauche: while the ground appears like a drawing, the sky is worked out in colour. The landscape details are depicted with the utmost precision, and the sense of depth is almost photographic. It is not unlikely that Rousseau used a perspective frame to record the features of the landscape, for traces of lines drawn with pencil and ruler are still visible. However, the work is fully signed, and not simply marked with the cachet d'atelier composed of Rousseau's initials. This suggests that he considered it complete as it stood. His unfinished works were prized even during his lifetime, and in 1850 financial difficulties forced him to hold a commercial exhibition of ‘paintings and studies from life’ which was highly praised by Delacroix.

Written on the back of the panel in an unknown hand are the words ‘Jean de Paris’. This is the name of a wooded elevation in the forest of Fontainebleau which bears not the slightest resemblance to the rocky plain seen here. Much to his regret, works by Rousseau were being given incorrect titles even while he was alive. This painting in fact shows the Gorges d'Apremont, where Rousseau worked on a series of panoramic paintings in 1848. The ébauche (Limoges, Musée Municipal) that he made for one of those works (Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek) closely resembles the picture in the Van Gogh Museum, not only in the topography but also in the manner of painting. Another, even closer parallel is provided by a large painting of the same landscape which is now in the museum at Glasgow.

Provenance Gallimard, Paris; Paul Cassirer, Berlin (1929); David-Weill, Paris (1931); Galerie Schmit, Paris; Walter Feilchenfeldt, Zürich (1973); private collection; purchased by the Vincent van Gogh Foundation at Stoppenbach & Delestre, London (1994).

Literature Exhib. cat. Romantische Malerei in Deutschland und Frankreich, Munich (Ludwigsgalerie) 1931, no. 67; exhib. cat. Züruck zur Natur, Bremen (Kunsthalle Bremen) 1977-78, no. 106; André Parinaud, Barbizon: les origines de l'Impressionnisme, Paris 1994, p. 70.

Rijssel, Paul van
see Gachet, Paul Ferdinand

Sande Bakhuyzen, Julius Jacobus van de
Dutch, 1835-1925

A passing shower: moorland in Drenthe before 1896
Oil on canvas, 103 × 140 cm
Signed at lower right: J. vd Sande Bakhuyzen
S 421 M/1991

A label on the back of this painting states that it was exhibited at Arnhem in 1897. There was indeed an Exhibition of Living Masters in Arnhem Town Hall that year, and under no. 252 the catalogue lists a painting by Van de Sande Bakhuyzen with the title A passing shower. It was a commercial exhibition, so the painting must have been executed shortly before that date.

A moorland path leads up a hill; two labourers are at work. Stretching away on the right is a plain covered with vegetation, above it a turbulent grey sky streaked with squalls of rain. The land beneath is bathed in a deceptive backlight. The Ruysdaellike composition and lighting give the painting a very convincing spatial effect.

The painter played a leading role in the artistic life of The Hague. He made extensive forays from his birthplace to work directly from nature, especially to the more remote, unspoiled corners of the Netherlands. In the 1880s and 1890s he frequently visited the province of Drenthe, in the north-east of the country. When Van Gogh went to Zweelo in Drenthe in the autumn of 1883 in search of picturesque subjects, one of the examples he cited was ‘Jules Bakhuyzen,’ whom he had befriended [407/340].

Provenance Voskuil, Amsterdam; Amsterdam (R.S. van Sousa), 5 May 1907, lot 205; Voskuil, Amsterdam; H.G. Tersteeg; The Hague (Glerum) 22 April 1991, lot 176, fig. 44; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1991).

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Literature Exhib. cat. Levende meesters, Arnhem (Gemeentehuis) 1897, no. 252; Acquisitions 1991, p. 72; Van Gogh Bulletin 7 (1992), no. 2, p. 11; De Leeuw 1994, p. 45.

Schuffenecker, Claude Emile
French, 1851-1934

Landscape with a draughtsman 1888
Oil on canvas, 59.5 × 73.2 cm
Signed and dated at lower right: E. Schuffenecker 88
S 379 M/1986

Like Gauguin, Schuffenecker spent a lot of time working in Brittany. However, when he painted this sun-drenched Landscape with a draughtsman he was evidently more attracted to the Impressionism of Claude Monet than to the new Synthetism of Pont-Aven.

The motif of a figure seen from the back, sunken in contemplation before a landscape, was dear to the Romantics. Several Impressionists also tried their hand at it, as it afforded the opportunity to depict both a landscape and the experience of it on one and the same canvas. Schuffenecker's figure - wearing a straw hat known as a canotier and accompanied by a dog - explicitly alludes to the artist's own ideal of nature, which he once described as the realisation of the ‘dream of the Garden of Eden.’ A preliminary study drawing for the figure is now in a private collection.

Provenance New York (Sotheby's), 20 February 1986, lot 36; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1986).

Literature Van Gogh Bulletin 1 (1986), no. 3, n.p.; Van Uitert 1987, p. 364; Acquisitions 1991, p. 73; exhib. cat. Vincent van Gogh and Japan, Kyoto (The National Museum of Modern Art) & Tokyo (Setagaya Art Museum) 1992, pp. 134-35, no. 38; René Porro, Claude-Emile Schuffenecker 1851-1934, Fedry & Combeaufontaine 1992, no. 176; De Leeuw 1994, p. 120.

Cliffs at Pantin before 1905
Oil on canvas, 81 × 100 cm
Signed at lower right with lotus flower monogram
S 377 V/1982

Schuffenecker participated in the 1905 Salon des Indépendants with a painting entitled Les falaises à Pantin. One of his descendants offered it at auction under that title in 1967, and although it was later renamed Cliffs on the coast of Brittany there seems no reason why its old title should not be restored. Pantin was a hilly stretch of wasteland in a Paris suburb which was inhabited by vagrants and ragpickers. The painting is a poetic interpretation of this subject in the flowing outlines so typical of the later Schuffenecker.

Provenance London (Sotheby's), 30 November 1967, lot 43; Mme. Schuffenecker; Amsterdam (Paul Brandt), 18 May 1976, lot 334; purchased by the Theo van Gogh Foundation (18 May 1976); transferred to the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1982).

Literature Exhib. cat. Emile Schuffenecker (1851-1934): peintures et pastels, Paris (Galerie Berri-Raspail) 1947, no. 15; exhib. cat. Le début du siècle aux Indépendants, Paris (Grand Palais) 1967, p. 27; Van Uitert 1987, p. 362; René Porro, Claude-Emile Schuffenecker, 1851-1934, Fedry & Combeaufontaine 1992, p. 166, fig. 139; De Leeuw 1994, pp. 120-21.

Schuffenecker, Claude Emile
(attributed to)

Portrait of Count Antoine de la Rochefoucauld [?] c. 1886
Oil on canvas, 69.5 × 56 cm
Unsigned
S 430 M/1992

Schuffenecker began his career as a banker, but studied art in his spare time with the leading painters Baudry and Carolus Duran. He also encouraged his colleague Paul Gauguin to pursue an artistic career. Together they frequented the Impressionists Guillaumin and Pissarro. Schuffenecker exhibited at the Salons of 1880 and 1881, but following his rejection in 1883 he took part in the first Salon des Indépendants in 1884.

After practising a decorative form of Impressionism for some time, Schuffenecker took up Pointillism around 1886 at the urging of Camille Pissarro. The style of this canvas places it in that period. It is clearly an experiment, for the Pointillist technique is not used consistently throughout. Only the artist's face and neck-cloth have blue stipples. The fall of light on the rear wall through a window with square panes is rendered in the complementaries green and red, which owes something to Neo-Impressionist practice, the dots being denser at the points where light and shade meet. The identification of the sitter as Count Antoine de la Rochefoucauld is based on a certain resemblance to that artist and patron of the Symbolists.

Provenance Galerie Rehn GmbH; London (Christie's), 29 June 1992, lot 73; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1992).

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Literature René Porro, Claude Emile Schuffenecker 1851-1934, Fedry & Combeaufontaine 1992, no. 178; Van Gogh Bulletin 8 (1993), no. 2, p. 13; De Leeuw 1994, p. 118.

Signac, Paul
French, 1863-1935

Railway junction near Bois
Colombes 1885
Oil on canvas, 46.5 × 65.1 cm
Signed and dated at lower left: P. Signac 1885
S 381 M/1986 (colour pl. p. 160)

The anarchist Signac was driven to paint unpicturesque subjects. He was particularly interested in the banlieue, where the enlargement of Paris resulted in a hotchpotch of roads leading nowhere, houses under construction, smoking chimneys and gasworks. Signac set up his easel behind the fence of the neighbouring railway line as randomly as possible. A tree cheekily bisects the canvas, but has to compete with telegraph poles, signals and a chimney.

The painting bears the date 1885 and is clearly executed in an Impressionist style related to Guillaumin's. His influence is mainly evident in the vivid colouring, with a tendency towards red and



brown, and in the preference for strong contrasts between light and shade. The nature of the ad hoc motif, however, is pure Signac.

In 1886, Signac exhibited a revision of Railway junction, now in the City Art Gallery in Leeds. It shows the same railway sidings, but from a different angle and painted in the Neo-Impressionist manner. During a restoration of the Amsterdam work in 1994 several earlier retouches were removed, revealing yet another pole with electric wiring. The cleaning also brought out the painting's astonishing freshness of touch on virtually unprimed canvas.

Provenance Goldschmidt collection, Frankfurt am Main; Nassau Galleries, Andover, Massachusetts; London (Sotheby's), 3 December 1986, lot 168; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1986).

Literature Van Uitert 1987, p. 364; Van Gogh Bulletin 2 (1987), no. 2, n.p.; Ellen Wardwell Lee et al., exhib. cat. Neo-Impressionisten. Seurat tot Struycken, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) 1988, no. 6; John Sillevis et al., exhib. cat. Een feest van kleur. Post-impressionisten uit particulier bezit, 's-Hertogenbosch (Noordbrabants Museum) 1990, no. 75; Acquisitions 1991, pp. 44-45, 73; exhib cat. Vincent van Gogh and Japan, Kyoto (The National Museum of Modern Art) & Tokyo (Setagaya Art Museum) 1992, no. 41; De Leeuw 1994, pp. 118-19.

Sluijters, Jan
Dutch, 1881-1957

Two women embracing 1906
Oil on canvas, 92.8 × 62.3 cm
Signed and dated at the upper left:
Jan Sluijter-Paris 06
S 382 M/1987 (colour pl. p. 164)

The talented student Jan Sluijters won the Prix de Rome in 1906, which entitled him to a four-year stay in the Italian capital. He soon managed to elude the obligations attached to the prize and made his way to Paris that very same year. There he began experimenting with bright colours and subjects from modern life. When the Prix de Rome jury saw this work as part of their remit to assess Sluijter's progress, the members were distressed by its ‘raw passion,’ its ‘neglect of Beauty,’ its ‘hurtful colour’ and the ‘coarse technique.’ Sluijters's allowance was withdrawn. This painting clearly reflects Sluijters's Paris experience in both subject-matter and technique. He had just met his compatriot Kees van Dongen and the Fauves, who were holding their first exhibition at the Salon d'Automne. There are several drawings connected with this painting, one of which was given to the Van Gogh Museum in 1988. Going by the discrepancies with the final result, it seems to be more of an exploration of the compositional possibilities of the subject than a copy made after the painting.

[p. 203]

Provenance Ivo Bouwman, The Hague; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1987).

Literature Exhib. cat. Jan Sluijters: 1881-1941, Amsterdam (Stedelijk Museum) 1941, no. 3 (ill.); exhib. cat. Jan Sluijters, The Hague (Haags Gemeentemuseum) 1941-42, no. 2 (ill.); exhib. cat. Jan Sluijters, Arnhem, (Vereniging voor Beeldende Kunsten) 1950, no. 4 (ill.); exhib. cat. Jan Sluijters, Amsterdam (Stedelijk Museum) 1951-52, no. 2; exhib. cat. Jan Sluijters, Paris (Institut Néerlandais) 1960, no. 1; exhib. cat. Jan Sluijters, Laren (Singer Museum) 1966-67, no. 28; exhib. cat. Jan Sluijters, 's-Hertogenbosch (Noordbrabants Museum) 1972, no. 2; exhib. cat. Jan Sluijters, The Hague (Kunsthandel Ivo Bouwman) 1976, no. 4; exhib. cat. Impressionists and Post-Impressionists from The Netherlands, Tokyo (The Seibu Museum of Art) 1980, no. 54 (ill.); Jan Juffermans and Noortje Bakker, Jan Sluijters-schilder, Mijdrecht 1981, pp. 15-18; exhib. cat. Jan Sluijters, 's-Hertogenbosch (Noordbrabants Museum) & Haarlem (Frans Hals Museum) 1981, no. 4; Van Gogh Bulletin 2 (1987), no. 4; De Bodt 1989, p. 254; exhib. cat. Jan Sluijters 1881-1957, 's-Hertogenbosch (Noordbrabants Museum) 1991, no. 37a; Acquisitions 1991, pp. 61, 74; Hanna de Clercq, Jan Sluijters en tijdgenoten, The Hague 1991, pp. 74-75; Ivo Bouwman, Twintig jaar kunsthandelaar 1972-1992, The Hague 1992, pp. 60-61; Mariëtte Haveman, ‘Portret van een wisselvallig personage,’ Kunstschrift 37 (1993), no. 1, pp. 11, 13; De Leeuw 1994, pp. 262-63.

Stevens, Alfred
Belgian, 1823-1906

L'Inde à Paris: le bibelot exotique c. 1867
Oil on canvas, 74.2 × 61 cm
Signed at lower left: Stevens
S 439 M/1993 (colour pl. p. 151)

Along with such artists as James McNeill Whistler and Félix Bracquemond, Alfred Stevens was one of the first to become enthusiastic about exotic art in the second half of the 19th century. He was an ardent collector of all kinds of oriental wares, from screens and porcelain to embroidered silks and albums of Japanese prints. In his spacious house in Paris, he created an eclectic ambience by combining old and modern masters and 18th-century and Empire furniture with Japanese and Chinese objects. Many of the items he depicted in his paintings were part of his collection, and the Indian elephant in this picture is



still in the possession of the artist's descendants. In 1867, Stevens put 18 paintings on show at the Exposition Universelle in Paris. Two pictures at this successful exhibition were entitled L'Inde à Paris. One, widely published, is now in a private collection; the other is probably the painting acquired by the Van Gogh Museum. The version in private hands shows a pyramidal composition, while the Amsterdam version has strong horizontal and vertical divisions. The oriental carpet is identical in both works, as is the elephant. The ivory Japanese figure on the elephant, absent from the other version, figures in Stevens's La dame en rose (Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts), painted in 1866. The screen on the right in the Van Gogh Museum picture also functions as an accessory in a work entitled Une visite (private collection). Stevens repeatedly rearranged his props into fresh harmonic compositions, of which this particular painting is a very successful example - not least due to the contrast between the sober green-grey background and the exuberant colours of the carpet and the pouffe.

Provenance William H. Stewart; American Art Galleries; New York (Chickering Hall), 3-4 February 1898, lot 51; Boussod, Valadon & Cie., Paris; Galerie George Petit, Paris; Charles Guasco, Paris; H. Schickman Gallery; Mrs Deane Johnson, New York; New York (Sotheby's), 17 February 1993, lot 91; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1993).

Literature Camille Lemonnier, ‘Alfred Stevens,’ Gazette des Beaux-Arts 17 (1878), pp. 160-74, 335-42; exhib. cat. Exposition Alfred Stevens, Paris (Ecole des Beaux-Arts) 1900, no. 74; Annie Grenez and Robert Rousseau, exhib. cat. Rétrospective Alfred Stevens, Charleroi (Palais des Beaux-Arts de Charleroi) 1975, no. 12; William A. Coles, exhib. cat. Alfred Stevens, Ann Arbor, (The University of Michigan Museum of Art) 1977-78, p. 31; Van Gogh Bulletin 8 (1993), no. 4, pp. 10-11; De Leeuw 1994, p. 37; Philippe Roberts-Jones (ed.), Bruxelles: fin de siècle, Ghent & Antwerp 1994, p. 41.

Stroebel, Johannes Anthonie Balthasar
Dutch, 1821-1905

Interior of the library in the Museum Plantin in Antwerp c. 1880
Oil on canvas, 55 × 65.5 cm
Unsigned
S3 MM/1992

At a 1992 sale this unsigned painting was attributed to the painter Stroebel, who produced a great many genre scenes with Dutch 17th-century figures in Pieter de Hoogh-like interiors. His speciality was the play of daylight, filtered through glass windows. This very sketchy painting was acquired for exhibition in the Museum Mesdag, whose founder, the painter Hendrik Willem Mesdag, had a special fondness for oil sketches and unfinished paintings. The canvas can be firmly ascribed to Stroebel. A wash drawing of the same composition was published in Elsevier's Geïllustreerd Maandschrift in 1883. In 1930, and again in 1978, a canvas called Intérieur de libraire (Musée Plantijn) was auctioned in Amsterdam (Sotheby's, 24 April 1978, lot 228), which is also related to it. The subject is the same, but there are three figures reading.

The painted version at the Van Gogh Museum could be seen as a mere study of the composition and distribution of light for the finished painting, but the

[p. 204]

result may have pleased the artist so much that he gave it the status of an independent work.

Provenance Amsterdam (Christie's), 28 October 1992, lot 115; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum for the Museum Mesdag (1992).

Stuck, Franz von
German, 1863-1928

Wounded amazon 1904
Oil on canvas, 65 × 76 cm.
Signed and dated at lower right: FRANZ STVCK 1904
S 442 M/1993

This important work by Franz von Stuck is his first version of the subject. A later variant of 1905, now in a private collection, differs in only a few details. The version in the Van Gogh Museum, however, is far more intense, has greater colour contrasts, and the outlines are more clearly defined.

The model for the wounded Amazon was a Miss Feez, Stuck's favourite model, whose portrait he painted several times. She also posed for the bronze Amazon on horseback, of which the Van Gogh Museum has a



cast. In addition to various studies, Stuck's estate contained several photographs in which the nude model is posed as she is in the picture. Her ‘shield’ is a drawing board to which leather grips have been attached. The warriors and centaurs fighting in the background can be seen as a homage to Arnold Böcklin, the Swiss painter whose mythological subjects had a great influence on Stuck.

Provenance Josef Mutzbauer, Munich; Käthe Meyer, Munich (1945); private collection; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum at Galerie Ritthaler, Munich (1993).

Literature H.J. Peters, ‘Der Maler und sein Modell: Das Geheimnis der schönen Amazone,’ Quick, 30 April 1969, pp. 78-83; exhib. cat., Malerei nach Fotografie. Von der Camera Obscura bis zur Pop Art, Munich (Münchner Stadtmuseum) 1970, no. 828; exhib. cat. Mit Kamera, Pinsel und Spritzpistole, Realistische Kunst in unserer Zeit, Recklinghausen (Städtische Kunsthalle) 1973), no. 231; Heinrich Voss, Franz von Stuck: Werkkatalog der Cemälde, Munich 1973, p. 156, no. 264/201; Horst Ludwig, ‘Albert Weisgerber und Hans Purrmann. Zwei Pfälzer bei Stuck,’ in exhib. cat. Franz von Stuck und seine Schüler, Munich (Museum Villa Stuck) 1989, no. 24; Eva Mendgen, Franz von Stuck, Cologne 1994, pp. 44-47; exhib. cat. Kampf der Geschlechter, Munich (Lenbachhaus) 1995, no. 36.

Toorop, Jan
Dutch, 1858-1928

Self-portrait in the studio 1883
Oil on panel, 50.5 × 36.1 cm
Signed and dated at lower right: J.Th. Toorop 83
S 388 M/1989

Toorop was one of the most internationally oriented Dutch artists of the fin-de-siècle. He had close contacts with Les XX in Brussels and introduced Neo-Impressionism to Holland. As chairman of the painting section of the Hague Art Circle in 1892 he was the prime mover behind the first major Van Gogh exhibition in the Netherlands. His reputation is primarily based on works in the Symbolist idiom, which he embraced around 1890. This self-portrait was painted during Toorop's Brussels period and shows the 25-year-old artist posing self-confidently (if not arrogantly) as a real Bohemian, surrounded by the attributes of his art.

Provenance Mr J. Schout Velthuys, Rotterdam; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1989).

Literature Exhib. cat. Nederlandse zelfportretten: van Vincent van Gogh tot heden, Dordrecht (Dordrechts Museum) & Arnhem (Gemeentemuseum) 1966-67, no. 54; Acquisitions 1991, pp. 56, 74; Van Gogh Bulletin 4 (1989), no. 3, n.p.; De Bodt 1989, p. 248; exhib. cat. De schilders

[p. 205]

van Tachtig: Nederlandse schilderkunst 1880-1895, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) 1991, no. 286; Frédéric Bastet, De wereld van Louis Couperus, Amsterdam 1991, p. 77, fig. 170; De Leeuw 1994, p. 257; Tokyo 1994, no. 23.

Valk, Hendrik
Dutch, 1897-1986

Portrait of Vincent and Theo van Gogh 1941
Oil on white pasteboard on grey pasteboard on black pasteboard, 83 × 42 cm
Signed at lower right: H.V.; annotated and signed on the back: OPUS 654 / THEO EN VINCENT VAN
GOCH / 1941 / HENDRIK VALK
S 354 M/1975

Hendrik Valk, who taught at the Arnhem Academy of Architecture from 1926 to 1962, never abandoned the draughtsman-like and immediately recognisable style that he had developed at the very beginning of his career. He based his distinctive manner of working in small, decorative planes on the new quest for abstraction that was taking place at the time, but unlike his colleagues he never completely abandoned visible reality.

This double portrait of a red-haired Vincent and a black-haired Theo is one of Valk's few surviving works from the Second World War. The silvery frame around pieces of pasteboard of different colours was apparently designed by the artist himself. His full signature can be seen on the old protective covering on the back.

The double portrait served as an illustration in Valk's 1941 pamphlet about the brothers, which was printed in an edition of 25 copies (the printing plates now belong to the Van Gogh Museum). It emerges from the text and the frontispiece, which shows the brothers' graves with a glowing cross between them, that the artist was motivated by a somewhat naive, Christian veneration of Van Gogh as ‘the true man.’

Provenance Purchased by the Van Gogh Museum at Galerie Hendriksen, Amsterdam (1975).

Literature Exhib. cat. Hendrik Valk, Leiden (De Lakenhal) 1973, no. 15; Van Uitert 1987, pp. 362-63.

Verkade, Jan Willibrord
Dutch, 1868-1946

Grisaille: young woman singing
Oil on paper, 37.2 × 20.9 cm
Unsigned
S 434 M/1990

In 1894, Verkade entered the monastery at Beuron in southern Germany to study as a novice under Father Desiderius Lenz. He then joined the Benedictine order and was sent out from Beuron on several occasions to paint religious murals elsewhere. This grisaille could be a preliminary study for one of those commissions.

The face of the singing figure is shown frontally and symmetrically. The mouth is in the very centre of the picture and the features are highly idealised. This suggests that the work comes from the period when Verkade fell under the spell of Lenz's artistic ideas. The latter saw the monastery at Beuron as a centre for the revival of religious painting. His theories were based on the universal, divine value of certain geometrical forms and proportions.

Provenance Donated to the Van Gogh Museum by Mr and Mrs De Boer-Braat, Diepenveen (1990).

Literature Caroline Boyle-Turner, et al., exhib. cat. Jan Verkade: Hollandse volgeling van Gauguin, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum), Quimper (Musée des Beaux-Arts) & Albstadt (Städtische Galerie) 1989.

Verster, Floris
Dutch, 1861-1927

Poppies 1888
Oil on canvas, 163 × 101.5 cm
Signed at lower left: Floris Verster
S 412 M/1990

In 1889 Breitner wrote to the Leiden painter Floris Verster: ‘If I had money, I'd buy the poppies.’ He had just been admiring his colleague's monumental still life at the Exhibition of Living Masters held at the artists' society Arti et Amicitiae in Amsterdam, where the painting was exhibited as Japanese poppies (no. 437). Everyone was thrilled by it, and it was even hailed by the critic and poet Albert Verwey as ‘the triumphant cry that long continued to resound in our ears.’

The background was originally greyish brown, but Verster altered it on the advice of Jan Toorop, who

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visited him on 9 June 1889. The wilting flowers depicted with bold brushstrokes now emerge from a dark background. The other plants are probably vines or sorrel, and they are also found in Verster's Flowers and leaves of 1887 (Leiden, Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal), which has almost the same dimensions as this picture.

Provenance E.J. van Wisselingh & Co., The Hague; Van Lynden, The Hague (1902); H.W. Baron van Pallandt van Neerijnen van Waardenburg (1928); E.J. van Wisselingh & Co., Amsterdam (1973); private collection, Zwolle; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1990).

Literature Anonymous, Onze Kunst 1 (1902), p. 122; Albert Verwey, ‘Breitner, Karsen en Verster,’ De Beweging 7 (1911), no. 1, p. 286; W. Scherjon (ed.), Floris Verster: [...] volledig geïllustreerde catalogus [...], Utrecht 1928, no. 38; exhib. cat. Floris Verster 1861-1927, Leiden (Museum De Lakenhal) & Arnhem (Gemeentemuseum) 1986, pp. 15, 22, no. 5; Aleid Montens, ‘Aantekeningen van Jenny Kamerlingh Onnes over Floris Verster,’ Jong Holland 2 (1986), no. 3, pp. 43-44; Acquisitions 1991, pp. 62-63, 74; exhib. cat. De schilders van Tachtig: Nederlandse schilderkunst 1880-1895, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) 1991, no. 149; De Leeuw 1994, pp. 258-59; A.M. Hammacher, ‘De terugkeer van Floris Verster,’ Kunstschrift (1995), no. 1, p. 43.

Verwey, Tonny (attributed to)
Biography unknown

Red and yellow peril
Oil on pasteboard, 30 × 24 cm
Signed at lower right: T.
S 351 V/1966

This painting is from the collection of the Amsterdam dentist H.A.D. Thomas, which was bequeathed to the Vincent van Gogh Foundation in 1966. It may have been painted by his assistant, Mrs A. Verwey-van Dijk of Osdorp. Thomas was a passionate amateur artist, and this, like many of his own canvases, seems to have been inspired by the work of Janus de Winter, a minor master of Utrecht, who had caused something of a stir in the early decades of this century with abstract works reflecting theosophical ideas.

Provenance H.A.D. Thomas, Amsterdam, bequeathed to the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1966).

Literature Van Uitert 1987, p. 363.

Vijlbrief, Jan
formerly attributed to Johan Joseph Aarts Dutch, 1868-1895

Clearing in the woods c. 1895
Oil on canvas, 29.4 × 44.5 cm
Unsigned
S 429 M/1992

The undogmatic application of Pointillist principles makes this unsigned painting a characteristic sample of Dutch Neo-Impressionism. Unlike their French predecessors Seurat and Signac, Dutch artists preferred to combine the expressive force of sharply contrasting colours with the decorative effect of uniformly stippled surfaces.

H.P. Bremmer took up stippling after seeing an exhibition of Toorop's Neo-Impressionist work in the Lakenhal at Leiden in 1894. He was followed by J.J. Aarts and J. Vijlbrief, who died tragically young. When Toorop temporarily abandoned the style, these three briefly became the Neo-Impressionist avant-garde in Holland. In the summer of 1895, Bremmer, Aarts and Vijlbrief worked together in the coastal dunes near The Hague in a closely related manner, and occasionally even depicted the same subjects, which makes it difficult to distinguish between their unsigned works. When it bought this painting the Van Gogh Museum attributed it to Aarts, but going by the evidence of the irregular stippling and the very decorative use of red it is more likely that it was painted by Vijlbrief.

Provenance Chris van de Fleer Ladèr and Else Lohmann; The Hague, (Van Stockum), 4-5 September 1991, no. 47; gallery Cas de Jong; Willem C.C. Rueb; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1992).

Literature De Leeuw 1994, p. 260 (attributed to Aarts).

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Weele, Herman Johannes van der
Dutch, 1852-1930

Flock of sheep in a landscape
Oil on canvas, 68.5 × 89 cm
Signed at lower left:: H.J. v/d Weele
S 287 V/1966

The choice of subject and manner of painting betray the artist's great debt to his idol, Anton Mauve. The backlighting, with the sun shining through the trees, was one of Mauve's favourite devices. While the foreground, with its greyish-green grass, is shrouded in shadow, light falls through the trees onto the backs of the sheep in the rear half of the flock. This delicate touch seems to be Van der Weele's attempt to outdo the older master. Van Gogh became friendly with Van der Weele in 1883 when he was living in The Hague. The latter was a drawing teacher at a local high school who encouraged Van Gogh in his lithographic efforts, and they often went out to work together. Although Van Gogh admired Van der Weele's talent, he did note a certain lack of originality in his work (see for example letter 340/407).

Provenance A. Mak, Dordrecht (1965); purchased by the Van Gogh Foundation (1966).

Literature Van Uitert 1987, p. 364.

Peasant on an ox cart
Oil on panel, 24.6 × 36.4 cm
Signed at lower left: HJ vd Weele
S 385 M/1988

When he was living in The Hague, Van Gogh was in regular touch with Herman van der Weele, a painter of landscapes and animals, and from time to time they also worked together. In a letter of 22 November 1882 Van Gogh wrote that he had encouraged Van der Weele to make lithographs of ‘fine things in his studio’, among them ‘an oxcart on the heath,’ which must refer to the Museum's work, or one closely related to it. Van der Weele's estate included a photograph (The Hague, Collection D. Bollen) which may have served as the model for this painting.

Provenance Private collection; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1988).

Literature Paul Hefting, ‘Brieven van G.H. Breitner aan H.J. van der Weele,’ Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 27 (1977), p. 135; De Bodt 1989, p. 252; Acquisitions 1991, p 74.

Sources cited

Acquisitions 1991: Van Gogh Museum: aanwinsten - acquisitions 1986-1991, Zwolle 1991

De Bodt 1989: Saskia de Bodt and Jos Koldewey, ‘Museumaanwinsten: Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh Amsterdam,’ Antiek 24 (1989), no. 4

De la Faille 1970: J.-B. de la Faille, The works of Vincent van Gogh: his paintings and drawings, Amsterdam 1970

De Leeuw 1994: Ronald de Leeuw, The Van Gogh Museum: paintings and pastels, Zwolle 1994

Hulsker 1989: Jan Hulsker, The complete Van Gogh: paintings, drawings, sketches, New York 1989

Luthi 1982: Jean-Jacques Luthi, Emile Bernard: catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint, Paris 1982

Stammégna 1981/86: Saveur Stammégna, Catalogue des oeuvres de Monticelli, 2 vols., Venca 1981, 1986

Stevens 1990: Mary Anne Stevens, et al., exhib. cat. Emile Bernard, 1868-1941, Ansterdam (Van Gogh Museum) & Mannheim (Städtische Kunsthalle) 1990

Tokyo 1993: exhib. cat. Vincent van Gogh and his time: Van Gogh and Millet from the Van Gogh Museum and the H.W. Mesdag Museum, Tokyo (Seiji Togo Memorial Yasuda Kasai Museum of Art) 1993

Tokyo 1994: exhib. cat. Vincent van Gogh and his time: Van Gogh and portraits from the Van Gogh Museum and the H.W. Mesdag Museum, Tokyo (Seiji Togo Memorial Yasuda Kasai Museum of Art) 1994

Van Uitert 1987: Evert van Uitert and Michael Hoyle (eds.), The Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam 1987

Walther 1990: Ingo F. Walther and Rainer Metzger, Vincent van Gogh: the complete paintings, 2 vols., Cologne 1990