Le Moulin de Blute-fin, Museum de Fundatie, Zwolle
Disputed Van Gogh painting Le Blute-Fin Mill goes on display
The Guardian News | 24 February 2010
Dirk Hannema was known as a brilliant art curator but a bit of a fool. He claimed he had seven Vermeers in his collection, several Van Goghs and a few Rembrandts, but no one believed him.
Now, 25 years after his death it turns out he was right – at least about one work, by Vincent van Gogh. The painting, Le Blute-Fin Mill, went on display today in the Museum de Fundatie in the central Dutch town of Zwolle.
Louis van Tilborgh, curator of research at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, said the painting was unusual for the impressionist, depicting large human figures in a landscape. It shows Parisians climbing wooden stairs to a windmill in the Montmartre district.
But the work was typical of Van Gogh's at that time in other ways, with its bright colours lathered roughly on the canvas.
Van Tilborgh said it was painted in 1886 when the artist was living in Paris. The canvas bore the stamp of an art store he frequented, and used pigments common in other works. The painting "adds to his oeuvre", he said.
"You can link it to certain works of Van Gogh in that period, but not that many".
It is the first Van Gogh to be authenticated since 1995 and the sixth to be added to the confirmed list of the artist's paintings since the latest edition of the standard catalogue was published in 1970, Van Tilborgh said.
Van Gogh painted about 900 works. Afflicted by mental illness, he died of a self-inflicted wound in 1890, aged 37.
Hannema, who died in 1984, bought the painting in 1975 from a dealer in Paris. He paid 5,000 guilders for this and another work, and insured it for 16 times what he paid. He touted the painting with "
absolute certainty" as a Van Gogh, but no one was listening. He had been discredited since he bought a purported Vermeer in 1937 that later was shown to be a forgery.
| © The Guardian News
Il dipinto
Le Moulin de Blutefin di Vincent Van Gogh era rimasto per 35 anni in un deposito di un museo della cittadina olandese al Museum de Fundatie di Zwolle.
Il quadro era stato acquistato nel 1975 dal fondatore e gestore del museo locale de Fundatie, Dirk Hannema, in un negozio di oggetti d'arte parigino come opera del famoso artista.
Visto che il collezionista privato è deceduto nel 1984 e ha sempre avuto una
'cattiva fama' come commerciante di opere d'arte, il dipinto ha avuto poca attenzione ed è finito in un deposito.
Nal 2010, le precise analisi di esperti del museo Van Gogh di Amsterdam confermano senza ombra di dubbio che il dipinto, 55 per 38 centimetri, è un originale Van Gogh.
