Buzz
Authenticating art can be a complicated process. Even seasoned specialists can be deceived by replicas or miss key details that could confirm a work’s true creator. At risk: the credibility of museums and vast sums of money.
The latest uproar in the art world began on Tuesday, when two leading experts on Post-Impressionist Vincent van Gogh proclaimed that a 65-page sketchbook, passed down through generations as a family heirloom in France, once belonged to the famous one-eared artist.
However, Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum quickly countered with an open letter, asserting that the sketchbook is not authentic. Drawing on their extensive collection of over 500 van Gogh sketches, museum officials noted that the drawings do not reflect the artist’s style from around 1888, and the brown ink used diverges from his usual preference for black or purple ink.
It’s believed that after Vincent van Gogh was sent to a mental institution following the infamous ear-cutting incident, he gifted the sketchbook to the owners of a hotel in Arles, France. Van Gogh had asked his doctor, Felix Rey, to deliver it to the Ginoux family, who had welcomed him as a guest and had given him a ledger to sketch in. The museum, however, argues that Rey had already left Arles by that time and had not visited Van Gogh.
One of the scholars who supports the sketchbook’s authenticity, Bogomila Welsh-Ovcharov, is a well-respected van Gogh authority. She recently published a book titled Vincent van Gogh: The Lost Arles Sketchbook, which includes commentary and reproductions of some of the drawings. Welsh-Ovcharov spent three years researching the sketches after discovering them in 2013. The book claims the sketchbook was in the Ginoux family’s possession for decades before being passed to a neighbor, who initially didn’t realize its value. The neighbor’s daughter dismissed it until a friend suggested she consult an art historian.
Welsh-Ovcharov argues that an entry in the hotel’s 1890 diary backs her account of the story. The entry, written by a Ginoux family employee, reads: “Monsieur Doctor Rey left for M. and Mme. Ginoux from the painter Van Goghe [sic] some empty olive boxes and a bundle of checked towels as well as a large book of drawings and apologizes for the delay.”
