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The Kroller-Muller Museum owns the second largest number of works by Vincent van Gogh in the world, including 'Cafe Terrace at Night,' 1888, oil on canvas. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Dutch museum discovers new Van Gogh still life

Tom Hoepf
Tom Hoepf
The Kroller-Muller Museum owns the second largest number of works by Vincent van Gogh in the world, including 'Cafe Terrace at Night,' 1888, oil on canvas. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
The Kroller-Muller Museum owns the second largest number of works by Vincent van Gogh in the world, including ‘Cafe Terrace at Night,’ 1888, oil on canvas. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AFP) – A still life depicting a bouquet of flowers painted by Dutch master Vincent Van Gogh in 1886 has been authenticated in a study which used a new x-ray technique, a Dutch museum spokeswoman said Tuesday.

“With this new radiography, there was no more doubt,” Kroller-Muller Museum spokeswoman Sylvia Gentenaar told AFP.

Still life with meadow flowers and roses, in Kroller-Muller’s possession since 1974, was declared a genuine Van Gogh notably after some particular characteristics were identified within the pigments used in the painting.

The new study also revealed Van Gogh painted the still life over an earlier painting of two wrestlers, said Gentenaar of the painting which from Tuesday will be on display at the museum in Otterloo in the eastern Netherlands.

The study, done by Delft and Antwerp universities, the Van Gogh and Kroller-Muller museums and the DESY research center for particle physics in Hamburg, Germany, showed the wrestlers to be of a typical Van Gogh design.

“The wrestlers are not completely naked. They wear some sort of pants which is characteristic of the Antwerp Academy, which Van Gogh attended” in 1885-86, Gentenaar said.

The painting was given “anonymous” status in 2003 after being considered for many years as a possible Van Gogh.

Born in the Netherlands on March 30, 1853, Van Gogh settled in Paris in 1886 where he was influenced by the Impressionists.

Van Gogh died of a gunshot wound—most believe to be self-inflicted—at the age of 37 in Auvers, France, in July 1890.

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

The Kroller-Muller Museum owns the second largest number of works by Vincent van Gogh in the world, including 'Cafe Terrace at Night,' 1888, oil on canvas. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
The Kroller-Muller Museum owns the second largest number of works by Vincent van Gogh in the world, including ‘Cafe Terrace at Night,’ 1888, oil on canvas. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.