MELBOURNE'S $5 million Vincent Van Gogh portrait has been exposed as the work of an unknown artist.

Head of a Man has been in the NGV collection since 1940.

For at least a decade before its purchase it was considered to be a minor but authentic work by the famous Dutch Post-Impressionist artist.

But a 10-month investigation by scholars at Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum has found the portrait was probably painted by a fellow student of Van Gogh in Antwerp or Paris in the mid 1880s.

NGV director Dr Gerard Vaughan said yesterday there was no evidence the artist had any intent to pass it off as the work of Van Gogh.

"May I stress it is clearly not a forgery; simply a picture by an unknown artist," Dr Vaughan said.

But he said the find had rendered the picture almost worthless in money terms.

"We have essentially written off the value we had put in our books as a Van Gogh," Dr Vaughan said.

"It will be worth something but I haven't even tried to go to the trouble to find out.

"I'm not saying it is without value . . . not a great deal of money, is the way to put it."

Head of a Man will return to Melbourne in a few weeks.

The NGV will rehang it in its Impressionists room with a new label.

The investigation was sparked last August when British art critic Ronald Pickvance saw the work on loan to Scotland's Dean Gallery and queried its attribution.

The NGV acted quickly, dispatching the portrait to Van Gogh experts Louis Van Tilbergh and Chris Stolzer in Amsterdam in October.

The Dutch team used X-radiograph, digital photographs, light microscopy and paint and thread analysis.

Among conclusions were:

THE work's ground layer of white paint is not found in Van Gogh's Antwerp and Paris works.

ITS use of pure ochre is not found in other Van Gogh work.

THE portrait shows just the top of the man's shoulders. Van Gogh usually showed more of the clothes.

"A COMBINATION of a fairly coarse and detailed painting style", with more detail in the mouth, eyes, skin and beard than Van Gogh used.

NO reference to the portrait or the sitter in Van Gogh's extensive letters.

The experts also noted no record of the work could be found before 1928, when it appeared at Berlin's Galerie Goldschmidt and Co.

Head of a Man arrived in Melbourne in 1939 as part of a major exhibition of French and British art organised by Herald and Weekly Times chairman Sir Keith Murdoch.

Almost three-quarters of the 215 works were for sale.

The NGV's then director, James MacDonald, bypassed two fine works by Van Gogh, Basket of Apples and Wheatfields with Auvers in the Background, for the "most conservative and least radical" choice, Dr Vaughan said.

NGV staff questioned MacDonald's choice, but war had scattered the European scholars and curators who would have advised the gallery.

The NGV paid pound stg. 2196 for Head of a Man in 1940.

Asked if the mistaken attribution would harm the NGV's reputation, Dr Vaughan said: "I don't think it will do anything to the NGV's reputation other than enhance it.

"We stand for scholarship and for finding the truth. It has been an exemplary process as far as I'm concerned."

The NGV will only pay for freight and laboratory tests.

The Van Gogh Museum's experts gave their time free "in a generous gesture of friendship to the NGV".

Improved scientific techniques have solved many art mysteries, including at the Van Gogh Museum, which now says its Portrait of a Woman is not by Van Gogh.

In recent years the NGV has reattributed several works in its 70,000-strong, $2.5 billion collection.

They include A Monk with a Book, artist formerly unknown, now attributed to Titian; Portrait of Rembrandt from Rembrandt to unknown, to Rembrandt's studio; and Kissing Babes, from unknown to Auguste Rodin.

    This is,... this isn't

You know,... it really amazes me how those MFA experts were able to come to their own conclusions, and about these two cut-outs of Vincent van Gogh's shown above.  These were both their own cut outs used for their own examples of saying this is,... and this isn't.  I would be willing to bet you that the first picture you see above that's supposed to be his, most would not even be able to find where it was cut out of the original drawing itself.  What else amazes me,.... about this cut-out of the drawing, is the exact replica of the unknown mans face in the Victoria painting.  Now say if someone were to make a fast pencil sketch to paint a face next to it,.... what more could one ask for?  I'm just wondering if and when this person making these cut-outs,.... if Vincent himself didn't have a little to do with it.

One Response to “National Gallery of Victoria buys a Van Gogh…err a Rubens? Wait is it a Gavin Turk?”

1. vanrijngo Says:
   April 12th, 2008 at 9:25 am