Fake no more: poppy painting in US museum is by Van Gogh—and has a surprise under the surface

Martin Bailey: The Art Newspaper

A still life of poppies which has been hidden away in storage for 30 years at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut has been authenticated, we can announce. Specialists at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam have also confirmed that there is a hidden image of a portrait beneath the paint, showing that Van Gogh reused the canvas to save money.

This news follows last month’s report that a still life of fruit and chestnuts at the San Francisco Museums of Fine Arts has also been accepted as by Van Gogh.

After painstaking investigations, the Van Gogh Museum has concluded that the Wadsworth’s Vase with Poppies is authentic, following an examination of the canvas, ground layer, pigments and style, as well as stylistic and art historical research. The still life is now dated to the early summer of 1886, a few months after the artist’s arrival in Paris. Poppies usually flower there in June and July. …Read More

Image: Van Gogh, Vase of Poppies (1886), Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut, Bequest of Anne Parrish Titzell