Work of Van Gogh unseen for a century goes up for auction

Work of Van Gogh unseen for a century goes up for auction

CREDIT: Sotheby’s and Mirabaud Mercier

A WORK of art by Van Gogh that has not been seen in public for a century is going up for auction for an expected €5 million to €8 million.

The painting, ‘Street scene in Montmartre’, painted between 1886 and 1888, has not been exhibited in the last hundred years.

Auction houses Sotheby’s and Mirabaud Mercier revealed the work by the Dutch artist, a canvas painted during the period he spent in Paris, which shows a couple walking along the Parisian hill of Montmartre, with its typical mills and vineyards as a backdrop.

“It is a revolutionary painting because it incorporates light colours and vivid pigments into Van Gogh’s work,” said Etienne Hellman, specialist in the department of Modern Art and Impressionism at Sotheby’s.

It has been in a private French collection of a family who prefers to remain anonymous and will be the centrepiece of the Impressionist art auction that both houses will hold in Paris on March 25. The sale can be followed from any Sotheby’s world headquarters as well as by telephone and internet.

The curator of the sale, Fabien Mirabaud, explained that they believe that “Théo, his brother, kept it, that it passed through some unknown intermediaries and that before 1920 it was already in the hands of this family.”

The starting price is expected to be reached, and is lower than the price reached in 2020 when a country landscape sold for €15 million.


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Jennifer Leighfield

Jennifer Leighfield, born in Salisbury, UK; resident in Malaga, Spain since 1989. Degree in Translation and Interpreting in Spanish, French and English from Malaga University (2005), specialising in Crime, Forensic Medicine and Genetics. Published translations include three books by Richard Handscombe. Worked with Euro Weekly News since November 2006. Well-travelled throughout Spain and the rest of the world, fan of Harry Potter and most things ‘geek’.

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