The controversy regarding the Van Gogh Sunflowers painting bought by the Yasuda Japanese insurance company a few years ago is about to be ended with the discovery of its provenance.
The authenticiity of the 14 sunflowers painting had been disputed by several researchers in France, Britain and Italy but as Artcult suggested last year (see our previous articles) they based their opinions on one of its owners, Emile Schuffenecker, a French artist whom they suspected of being a forger.
In fact, the painting was said to have belonged to Jo Bonger, Van Gogh's sister-in-law who sold it through the widow of Père Tanguy, who was used to supply colour tubes to the artist and to Schuffenecker. Several letters in the archives of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam tend to prove that the sale effectively took place. Tanguy's widow wrote to the brother of Jo Bonger a letter mentioning a price of 600 francs for Van Gogh's Sunflowers and Schuffenecker answered with a counter- offer of 300 francs
The sale was confirmed in a another letter while Jo Bonger received in 1901 a letter showing that Schuffenecker was among the three collectors who loaned the Sunflowers for an exhibition organised by the Bernheim-jeune gallery in Paris. After that event the painting suffered some minor deteriorations and Schuffenecker restored it himself. Thus, contrary to what British journalist Geraldine Norman suggested in a television film released in October 1997 he seemed not to have produced a forgery.
Bogomila Welsh-Ovcharov, a researcher at the University of Toronto, who rediscovered the series of letters also found that Paul Gauguin had also owned another version of the Sunflowers which is now in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This painting was sold in 1896 to Count Antoine de la Rochefoucauld by the Paris art dealer Antoine Vollard.
Gauguin said in one letter that he had received this painting from Van Gogh just after it had been painted in 1889.
Regarding the Van Gogh work bought by Yasuda the controversy has however not ended yet as those who dispute its authenticity want more tangible proof. A symposium on Van Gogh due to be held in London on May 15th 1998 will represent an opportunity to clarify certain points. Still, there are now less reasons to believe that this painting is a fake and those who have staged a campaign to say so might soon find themselves without good arguments.
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