Vincent Van Gogh's Sunflowers Is It Or Isn't It The Real Thing Says Expert

[Patdwfsyte]

The debate over the authenticity of Van Gogh's Sunflowers, the world's most
expensive painting when sold at Christie's for £24.75 million in 1987 to the
Yasuda Fire Insurance Company, has taken a new turn. Last year, research
published by the arts journalist Geraldine Norman and shown on Channel 4's
ArtHouse sought to establish that the painting was a fake, painted by Van
Gogh's friend, Claude-Emile Schuffenecker said the Telegraph. A key stage in
the argument was the apparent lack of documentation on the painting between
1889, when it was said to have been executed, and 1901, when it appeared on
record at an exhibition at the Bernheim Jeune gallery in Paris. However, an
article published in The Burlington Magazine this month reveals an alternative
history, based on archival research at the Van
Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.The author of the article is a known authority on
19th-century European painting. She consulted the sale records of the late
19th-century Parisian art dealer, Ambrose Vollard.In the article she traces the
provenance of all 11 sunflower paintings Van Gogh executed between 1887 and
1889. Prof Welsh-Ovcharov's findings, which she describes as
"incontrovertible", have found immediate support among curatorial staff at the
Van Gogh Museum. John Leighton, the director, said he "had never had any doubt
as to the authenticity of the Yasuda Sunflowers".Speaking from Moscow last
night, Geraldine Norman said: "Vollard's accounts are very muddled and what
belonged to whom and when is still a matter of argument. I do not agree with
the case she makes."