Experts have determined that a drawing of a quarry in Paris is a real Van Gogh. Thanks to this discovery, a second drawing can also be attributed to the Dutch master. The work was presented this morning in the Singer Museum in Laren.
So what’s this new drawing by Van Gogh?
The drawing was made in 1886, the year that Van Gogh studied at the academy in Antwerp for some time. It is not a real preliminary study, but the drawing is strongly reminiscent of his oil painting The Hill of Montmartre.
Experts have been investigating the new Drawing by Van Gogh since 2013, after he turned up in the heritage left by Georgina Vermeer. She had bought the drawing in 1917 and knew about the famous maker. Yet the work disappeared from the radar for years, until her grandson recovered it.
The grandson of Georgina Vermeer (yeah, we’re waiting for a Rembrandt and Mondriaan to pop up in this story as well now) brought the drawing back to the attention of experts during a lecture by art advisor Fred Leeman in Paris, the city where the work was made. Whether it was a real Van Gogh was uncertain at the time. This had to be determined by researchers at the Van Gogh Museum.
New drawings by Van Gogh are rare to be discovered
Although there are hundreds of drawings by Vincent van Gogh, it is not often that new work is attributed to him. Since 1970, the last time when a catalog was made, nine drawings and seven paintings have been discovered.
With the drawing, two new works can actually be added to Van Gogh’s oeuvre. A second drawing had been known for some time, but the maker was doubted because of the “academic character” of the work.
The two drawings appear to have been made about fifty meters apart from each other.
Exhibition of the newly discovered Van Gogh drawings
The work that Georgina Vermeer bought more than a hundred years ago is no longer in the possession of her family. The drawing has been sold to travel billionaire John Fentener van Vlissingen and has become the property of his Van Vlissingen Art Foundation.
The new discovery can be seen in the Singer Museum until May the 6th, in addition to works by Monet, Renoir and Picassso, among others.