Still Life Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers

English

Still Life Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers: Vincent van Gogh

Price: Price on Request
Art Type: Oil Painting
Size:
English Comments: 0
International Comments: 0
Creating Date:
Introduction and Works of Vincent van Gogh >>

Contemporary-Art.org

Reproduction

Enlarge

Vincent van Gogh Oil Painting - Still Life Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers

Keywords: Life, Vase, Fifteen, Sunflowers

Work Overview: Still Life - Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers
Vincent van Gogh
Date: 1888; Arles, Bouches-du-Rhône, France *
Style: Post-Impressionism
Genre: flower painting
Media: oil, canvas
Dimensions: 73 x 92.1 cm
Location: National Gallery, London, UK

Sunflowers (original title, in French: Tournesols) is the name of two series of still life paintings by the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh.

Van Gogh began painting in late summer 1888 and continued into the following year. One went to decorate his friend Paul Gauguin's bedroom. The paintings show sunflowers in all stages of life, from full bloom to withering. The paintings were considered innovative for their use of the yellow spectrum, partly because newly invented pigments made new colours possible.

In a letter to Theo,[16] Vincent wrote:

"It's a type of painting that changes its aspect a little, which grows in richness the more you look at it. Besides, you know that Gauguin likes them extraordinarily. He said to me about them, among other things: ‘that — ... that's... the flower’. You know that Jeannin has the peony, Quost has the hollyhock, but I have the sunflower, in a way."

On March 30, 1987, even those without interest in art were made aware of van Gogh's Sunflowers series when Japanese insurance magnate Yasuo Goto paid the equivalent of US $39,921,750 for van Gogh's Still Life: Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers at auction at Christie's London, at the time a record-setting amount for a work of art.[18] The price was over four times the previous record of about $12 million paid for Andrea Mantegna's Adoration of the Magi in 1985. The record was broken a few months later with the purchase of another Van Gogh, Irises, by Alan Bond for $53.9 million at Sotheby's, New York on November 11, 1987.

While it is uncertain whether Yasuo Goto bought the painting himself or on behalf of his company, the Yasuda Fire and Marine Insurance Company of Japan, the painting currently resides at Seiji Togo Yasuda Memorial Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo. After the purchase, a controversy arose whether this is a genuine van Gogh or an Émile Schuffenecker forgery.

Two Paris versions van Gogh exchanged with Gauguin in December 1887 or January 1888, were both sold to Ambroise Vollard: one in January 1895 and the other in April 1896. The first canvas resided for a short time with Félix Roux, but was reacquired by Vollard and sold to Degas from his estate to Rosenberg, then to Hahnloser and bequested to the Kunstmuseum Bern. The second was acquired by the Dutch collector Hoogendijk at the sale of his collection by Kann, who ceded the painting to Richard Bühler and then via Thannhauser to the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

Two of van Gogh's Sunflowers paintings never left the artist's estate: the study for one of the Paris versions (F377) and the repetition of fourth version (F458). Both are in the possession of the Vincent van Gogh Foundation, established 1962 by Vincent Willem van Gogh, the artist's nephew, and on permanent loan to the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

Five other versions are recorded in the Van Gogh estate papers:[19]

the final Paris version (F.452) in the artist's estate was sold 1909 via C. M. van Gogh, The Hague (J. H. de Bois) to Kröller-Müller
(F457) sold 1894 to Émile Schuffenecker. (Tokyo version).
(F456) sold 1905 via Paul Cassirer to Hugo von Tschudi. (Munich version).
(F459) sold 1908 C. M. van Gogh (J. H. de Bois), The Hague to Fritz Meyer-Fierz, Zürich (destroyed Japan 1945).
(F454) sold 1924 via Ernest Brown & Phillips (The Leicester Galleries) to the Tate Gallery; since on permanent loan to the National Gallery, London. (London version).
Two Arles versions left the artist's estate unrecorded:

(F453) (private collection). Sold 1891 to Octave Mirbeau, Paris, (via Tanguy, Paris) for £12 (about £1,300 in 2013 £). Sold 1996 to a private collector for an undisclosed sum.[20]
(F455) (Philadelphia version).

Copyright Statement:
All the reproduction of any forms about this work unauthorized by Singing Palette including images, texts and so on will be deemed to be violating the Copyright Laws.
To cite this webpage, please link back here.

>> English Comments >> Chinese Comments >> French Comments >> German Comments >>Report

Vincent van Gogh

Work Overview