Have You Seen This Painting?

The only van Gogh painting in Egypt has been stolen...again. An 1886 still-life of poppies and viscaria (F324a, JH1137 for those keeping score in the catalogues raisonnés) disappeared yesterday from the Mohammed Mahmoud Khalil Museum in Cairo and contrary to early published reports, has NOT yet been recovered. (Note to CNN on tv: update your crawler.) This particular painting, valued at about $50 million, was purloined in 1978 but recovered in Kuwait a decade later; nine different paintings were taken from this same museum last year, so something is clearly amiss with security. Easy to see what: reports this morning are that only seven of the museum's 43 security cameras were working, and that none of the individual alarms on the museum's paintings worked, either. The museum's records show only ten visitors to the museum yesterday. Police tracked and arrested two of them, a young Italian couple, at the Cairo airport yesterday afternoon...but the painting is still at large. If you see it, call the cops immediately! (Wild speculation: could it be an inside job, with the Italian couple used as a diversion à la "The Thomas Crown Affair"? Someone who knew the alarms and cameras were not working? Hmm...)

I've noticed a couple of the news stories have illustrated the wrong painting with their reports: the one pictured here is the correct canvas. It is one of a series of floral still lifes produced by Vincent while he was living in Paris and thought to date from summer 1886 (some of the stories have the wrong date, too). They are 'practice pieces' -- studies Vincent did to explore his ideas about color theory. Friends and obliging local florists provided him with blooms to paint.

A Van Gogh Mystery

Police in Santa Fe are asking for the public's help with a burglary from an artist's home of about $750,000 worth of artworks, jewelry, and artifacts, including an alleged charcoal drawing by Vincent van Gogh. The Santa Fe New Mexican posted an article today about the heist but unfortunately provides no photographs of the drawing. The homeowner describes the drawing as a 14-by-17 inch charcoal preliminary sketch of the "Night Café" painting in the Yale University collection (the same painting that currently is entwined in its own legal battle) and says it is identical to the painting except that it lacks VIncent's signature.

This story intrigues me, and not because of the theft. This drawing -- if it is indeed by van Gogh -- is unknown in the canon, as far as I've been able to find out. It is not in the de la Faille catalogue raisonné, and it is not mentioned in the scholarship surrounding the Night Café painting. The homeowner says that his great-grandfather bought the drawing and it has been in his family ever since: how can van Gogh experts not know about it? And another point ... when Vincent was living in Arles in September 1888, at the time he did the Night Café painting (and the watercolor version of the painting today in a Swiss private collection), his drawing materials of preference were pencil and/or ink/reed pen. Not charcoal.

I would really like to see a photograph of this drawing. According to the article, experts at Yale have been brought into the case. I would also really be curious to know what they have to say.

UPDATE (20 Sept 2009): On 9/11 the Santa Fe New Mexican reported that the alleged van Gogh drawing was discovered, along with the other artworks allegedly stolen from the home, at a consignment shop in Raton, on sale for $250. The whole thing smells odd to me: to quote John Turturro in "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" -- "That don't make no sense." Among the comments on the article about the recovery (which are otherwise pretty silly), David Brooks from the online Van Gogh Gallery (www.vggallery.com, the best non-museum Van Gogh site there is) rightly points out that "There is no such known van Gogh drawing. Saying it's a van Gogh doesn't make it a van Gogh." He's got that right.

Score One for the Good Guys

Yesterday in Miami federal court, Bernard Jean Ternus -- a French national living in a suburb of Fort Lauderdale -- pleaded guilty to conspiring to sell stolen art. He thought he was making a $4.7 million deal...but his 'clients' were undercover FBI agents and French police. Whoops! The four paintings in question were stolen in August 2007 during a masked & armed robbery at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Nice: Monet's "Cliffs Near Dieppe," Alfred Sisley's "The Lane of Poplars at Moret," and two allegorical paintings by 17th century Flemish artist Jan Breughel the Younger.

Months of police work and faux-negotiations between the undercover agents and Ternus took place before the cops pounced. The artwork was recovered on June 4, 2008 in Marseille: when the 'purchase' was supposed to happen, French police arrested two other people and found the paintings undamaged in a van. You can read more about the story and possible consequences for Ternus here.

Recovered!

The van Gogh and Monet stolen from the Buehrle Collection in Zurich last week have been recovered. A parking lot attendant at a Zurich psychiatric hospital spotted the paintings yesterday in an abandoned white car, the same car reported from the theft. The Cezanne and Degas were not in the car. Museum officials report that the two paintings are absolutely the originals, and that there is no damage.

An interesting tidbit: according to the Associated Press, the police spokesman said in the press conference that he did not know whether a ransom had been paid for the paintings, but the museum director said, "I can't give any information on that." Were the thieves paid to abandon the paintings? Or were they amateurs who realized they couldn't unload the paintings as easily as they hoped? Did the intense media attention spook them?

And where are the Cezanne and Degas?

More on the Missing Painting

The Zurich theft gave me a great excuse to come home and play in my van Gogh books instead of grading exams. "Blossoming Chestnut Branches" (F820, H747 for those keeping score in Faille and Hulsker) was painted early in Vincent's stay at Auvers-sur-Oise, either in the first few days, e.g. between May 20-25, 1890 (Faille) or early June (Hulsker). The May date advocated by Faille comes from mention in an early Auvers letter of four paintings; two of those are later said by Vincent to be studies of blossoming chestnut trees (street scenes). "Blossoming Chestnut Branches" may be in the same group. In any case, it's interesting to me that Vincent returned to the theme of blossoming trees when first arriving in Auvers -- he'd done the same in Arles in Feb-March 1888. Perhaps in Auvers, too, it was a way of affirming his desire for a new beginning. Especially poignant given that he went to Auvers hoping to find solace and recovery from the illness that had kept him in the asylum at Saint-Rémy for a year.

"Blossoming Chestnut Branches" entered the collection of Dr. Paul Ferdinand Gachet, Vincent's doctor in Auvers, and passed to Dr. Gachet's children, Paul and Marguerite. Paul Gachet fils sold the painting to a Paris art dealer in 1912: one of the first van Goghs from the Gachet collection to be sold (not the last). It is unclear why that particular painting was sold early on, whereas less noteworthy van Goghs were sold later or not at all. "Blossoming Chestnut Branches" is held by many to be one of the finest still lifes of the Auvers period.

For more on the Gachet collection, see Susan Alyson Stein's essay "The Gachet Donation in Context" in the 1999 exhibition catalogue, "From Cezanne to van Gogh: The Collection of Doctor Gachet." Interestingly, "Blossoming Chestnut Branches" was not included in the Gachet exhibition nor in the Met's 1989 show, "Van Gogh in Saint-Rémy and Auvers." E. Buehrle acquired the painting in 1951, after it passed among a couple of private collectors in Germany and France.

Where'd They Gogh?

That pun was about as criminal as the Zurich theft. More details are emerging: the three thieves spoke German with a Slavic accent, and they escaped in a white car with the trunk open and the paintings visible. Police hope somebody saw them and can report a tag number or other information. The choice of the four paintings was made based on their location near the door; they were lined up together on one wall. The weight of framed paintings made it difficult for the three suspects to carry more.

The value of van Goghs means, of course, this is not the first theft. In December 1988, three van Goghs were stolen from the Kroller-Muller Museum in Otterlo, including an early version of the "Potato Eaters"; all were recovered. In April 1991, twenty paintings were stolen from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, including (horrors!) "The Potato Eaters," "Wheatfield with Crows," and the VGM's version of "Sunflowers." All were recovered about an hour later in the getaway car (a Volkswagen Passat), abandoned at the train station. Three suffered minor damage, including "Wheatfield with Crows," since repaired. Then in December 2002, the VGM was hit again and two paintings from the Dutch period were stolen, "View of the Sea at Scheveningen" and "Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen." These two have NOT been recovered, although two suspects were charged in the theft, based on DNA evidence left behind at the scene.

A couple of news articles today are calling the Zurich art heist the second largest in history (after the 1991 VGM theft), but wouldn't the 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft be second? Those paintings still haven't been recovered, including one Vermeer, three Rembrandts, and five Degas. Perhaps they mean second largest in EUROPEAN history.

Stolen!

A gang of armed thieves overpowered museum personnel at the E.G. Buehrle Foundation in Zurich on Sunday, making off with four major works: van Gogh's "Blossoming Chestnut Branches" from the Auvers period (shown); Monet's "Poppy Field at Vetheuil"; Degas' "Ludovic Lepic and His Daughter"; and Cezanne's "Boy with a Red Waistcoat" (not to be confused with the "Boy with a Red Waistcoat" in the National Gallery, Washington). The four are estimated at $163.2 million, and a $91,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the recovery of the paintings.

The Buehrle Foundation is actually home to several van Goghs, including a version of the November 1888 "Sower" and a Paris period self-portrait. At least the thieves only got one of them.