find yourself in Hong Kong at the moment? today’s the last day during which you can head over to Sotheby’s Maison and queue up to view the Blaquier-Arrieta Collection, including a glimpse at Van Gogh’s rarely seen painting Châtaigniers en fleurs (Chestnut Trees in Blossom) before it continues its tour ahead of a New York auction on November 18, where it’s expected to fetch around US$180 million before fees, which would set a new auction record for Van Gogh (Sotheby’s published tiered premium, before taxes, would put the total at US$207.68m at that hammer price).
Sotheby’s describes this moment in Vincent’s work as one of ‘extraordinary optimism’ and ‘frenetic energy, enthusiasm, passion, and colour.’ beneath the blooming canopy, a man (suggestive of Vincent himself) walks past three women who appear to be wearing Japanese clothing.
the now-famous painter, little known beyond artistic circles during his lifetime, painted it in the two months sandwiched between leaving the psychiatric asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, where he had spent a year recovering from a mental health crisis, and his death at age 37 from a fatal self-inflicted gunshot to the chest.
he found himself at the time in Auvers-sur-Oise, a tiny village 30km north of Paris, where the doctor Paul Gachet, an art lover and amateur painter, lived. there Vincent opted to live after leaving the asylum, a relocation choice that put him within train ride distance to his brother Theo, who lived with his family in the capital.
during this extraordinarily productive period in his career1 Nienke Bakker, Emmanuel Coquery, Teio Meedendorp and Louis van Tilborgh explore this period in Van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise: His Final Months , he produced between May and July 1890 no less than 74 paintings and 33 drawings.
while we can’t profess to know what was going on in his mind, we do have an unfinished, unsent draft of his final letter to Theo to go on, in which he writes, “…we can only make our paintings speak,” adding near the end:
…that’s all, or at least the main thing I can have to tell you in a moment of relative crisis. In a moment when things are very tense between dealers in paintings – by dead artists – and living artists.
on 27 July, he shot himself in a field near Auvers. earlier that month, he had described his wheatfield paintings (thought to include Wheatfield with Crows and Wheatfield under Thunderclouds) in a letter to Theo and his wife Jo, describing them as “…immense stretches of wheatfields under turbulent skies, and I made a point of trying to express sadness, extreme loneliness.” he adds, “…these canvases will tell you what I can’t say in words, what I consider healthy and fortifying about the countryside.”
the wound didn’t prove immediately fatal. he managed to stumble to his room at the Auberge Ravoux guesthouse where he’d been staying and died two days later, his beloved brother by his side.
fast-forward to present day, and visitors are fortunate enough to view one of only eight landscapes from his time in Auvers currently in private hands, back on public view after more than six decades, having last been exhibited in 1964 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.
over the years, the painting passed hands from Theo to his widow Johanna van Gogh-Bonger and their son Vincent Willem, followed in turn by French Rothschild family member Prince de Wagram the Fourth in 1905, German publisher Samuel Fischer2 founder of S. Fischer Verlag (est. in 1886), since 1962 a division of Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, a majority shareholder in Springer Nature in 1909, followed by his daughter Brigitte on his death in 1934. next came Henriette and Marcel Kapferer in 1936, Marcel then heading Royal Dutch Shell in France. the painting later passed, circa 1945, to songwriter and record executive George “Buddy” DeSylva3 co-founder in 1942 of Capitol Records, acquired in 1955 by EMI, and owned since 2012 by Universal Music Group . penultimately, it was acquired in 1953 by New York collector Harriet Harris-Jonas, whose art collection was so vast that Metropolitan Museum of Art patrons were invited to view works at her Fifth Avenue home. in 1975, it was acquired by controversial Argentinian sugar business tycoon Carlos Pedro Blaquier4 Blaquier, in 2012, was charged over his alleged complicity in kidnappings involving vehicles supplied by his sugar company - in Argentina’s Night of the Blackout (Noche del Apagón) in 1976, part of the state-sponsored Dirty War, during which left-wing workers, union organisers and other perceived opponents of the dictatorship were kidnapped and tortured by police, some of whom remain missing. he died before the case went to trial. and Maria Elena “Nelly” Arrieta de Blaquier, his sugar baroness and art patron wife, both now deceased. it subsequently passed to their children, who have now put it up for auction.
Vincent, a quintessential poster child for the archetype of the tortured, penniless artist, never achieved income independence through his art. 136 years ago he died still financially dependent on Theo, filled with dread over financial worries alongside his lifelong personal challenges with his mental and physical health. yet works that capture the imagination alongside the tale of his tragic existence live on in the private spaces of the wealthiest among us.
lessons are rarely learned—only voyeuristically enjoyed in the rear-view mirror—but were we to take something away from this: support the artists in your life today. they stop needing it once they’re gone.
#100DaysToOffload/16
Footnotes
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Nienke Bakker, Emmanuel Coquery, Teio Meedendorp and Louis van Tilborgh explore this period in Van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise: His Final Months ↩
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founder of S. Fischer Verlag (est. in 1886), since 1962 a division of Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, a majority shareholder in Springer Nature ↩
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co-founder in 1942 of Capitol Records, acquired in 1955 by EMI, and owned since 2012 by Universal Music Group ↩
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Blaquier, in 2012, was charged over his alleged complicity in kidnappings involving vehicles supplied by his sugar company - in Argentina’s Night of the Blackout (Noche del Apagón) in 1976, part of the state-sponsored Dirty War, during which left-wing workers, union organisers and other perceived opponents of the dictatorship were kidnapped and tortured by police, some of whom remain missing. he died before the case went to trial. ↩