Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

Van Gogh Museum at 50: A brief history of Van Gogh and the art market

23/03/2023

Van Gogh Museum at 50: A brief history of Van Gogh and the art marketAmsterdam's Van Gogh Museum turns 50 in 2023. The museum attracts over two million visitors each year. Here's a brief history of Van Gogh

by The Conversation

23-03-2023 15:51

in Art and Artists

Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum turns 50 in 2023.

Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum turns 50 in 2023. The museum, dedicated to the art of one of the most famous artists in the world, attracts over two million visitors each year.

--

Yet, despite his fame today, Vincent van Gogh allegedly made only one documented sale of a painting during his lifetime. This was The Red Vineyard, produced near Arles in Provence in the autumn of 1888.

The enlightened buyer was Belgian painter Anna Boch, whose brother was a close friend of the artist. She spotted the vibrant landscape at the 1890 exhibition of the avant-garde group Les XX, of which she was a member.

ALSO READ: Record-breaking Vermeer show opens in Amsterdam

--

The price was 400 francs, the equivalent of around US$2000 (£1649) today, and would have seemed like a huge windfall to the struggling Van Gogh. If it were sold at auction today, the same painting could expect to fetch upwards of a hundred million US dollars.

Van Gogh dreamed of achieving posthumous fame and it was not long after he took his own life in July 1890 that the market for his pictures began to develop.

The Red Vineyard, the only painting Vincent van Gogh is certainly known to have sold during his lifetime. Pushkin Museum, Moscow Boch went on to buy a second painting, Peach Blossom in the Crau, in 1891. In the same year Vincent's art dealer brother Theo died of syphilis. Van Gogh had given a handful of works to the artists' colour merchant P re Tanguy in Paris, but it was Theo's widow, Jo van Gogh Bonger, who would inherit the bulk of his vast oeuvre, making her the main source of his paintings.

--

As a result, she controlled the market for Van Gogh in Paris, Berlin, London and, eventually, New York.

ALSO READ: Five things to know about Vermeer

EUROPE'S ART MARKET DISCOVERS VAN GOGH In 1901 the French poet Julien Leclercq, with Van Gogh Bonger's assistance, organised the first Van Gogh retrospective at the Bernheim-Jeune gallery in Paris. The event brought Van Gogh to the attention of the German dealer Paul Cassirer, who went on to create a market for Vincent's work in Berlin, supported by the influential art historian Julius Meier-Graefe.

By 1914 it was estimated that as many as 120 pictures by Van Gogh were in German collections and his work quickly increased in value.

Jo van Gogh-Bonger (1862-1925). Van Gogh Museum / Vincent van Gogh Foundation In Britain, meanwhile, the art dealer with the closest links to Van Gogh was Alexander Reid. In 1887 Reid worked alongside Theo at the firm of Boussod & Valadon in Paris and briefly shared an apartment with both Van Gogh brothers.

However, despite his close physical resemblance to the artist (two portraits of Reid by Van Gogh, now in Glasgow and Oklahoma, were originally catalogued as self-portraits), it was not until the early 1920s that he began to exhibit and sell his pictures to rich industrialists in Glasgow and London. Among the most significant was the Scottish collector Elizabeth Workman, the wife of a successful ship owner.

The most important early collector of Van Gogh's work was another enlightened woman, Helene Kr ller-M ller, who - although German by birth - was based in Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

Advised by the Dutch painter and critic Henk Bremmer, she bought her first work by Van Gogh in 1908. Supported by her industrialist husband Anton (who was initially sceptical of her new-found passion), she went on to acquire no fewer than 91 paintings and over 180 works on paper.

Along with Cassirer, Bremmer helped to push up the price of Van Gogh's work. As a result, fakes began to appear in various galleries and exhibitions. The most famous forgery case was that of the dancer-turned-art dealer Otto Wacker, who was brought to trial in Berlin in 1932.

ALSO READ: Vermeer shines at once in history' Amsterdam show

VAN GOGH'S ART MARKET GOES GLOBAL As the market for Van Gogh's pictures increased, the importance of establishing the authorship of a painting or drawing became even more crucial.

In the 1980s, with the advent of the Japanese craze for Van Gogh, his work began to fetch world records at auction. In 1987 there was huge public debate around the authenticity of the Sunflowers acquired by the Yasuda Marine Insurance company in 1987 for US$39.9 million.

Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat by Vincent van Gogh (1887). Van Gogh Museum / Vincent van Gogh Foundation Three years later the Japanese businessman Ryoei Saito paid the record price of US$82.5 million for the Portrait of Doctor Gachet. Most recently this record was smashed in November 2022, when a Van Gogh landscape of Arles from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's collection sold for US$117 million to an anonymous bidder.

Today the Van Gogh Museum has the last word when it comes to authenticating the artist's work. The Yasuda Sunflowers are now believed to be authentic, based on the picture's provenance, which can be traced back to Jo van Gogh Bonger.

ALSO READ: Banksy unveils new Valentine's Day Mascara' artwork

A more recent discovery of a portfolio of Van Gogh drawings in 2016, however, has not yet been accepted as genuine. But what is it about Van Gogh's work that remains so compelling to prospective buyers, over 130 years after his death?

Today, as we are encouraged to focus on mental health, his work seems to have more relevance than ever. Whatever the reason, and despite the scorn that he endured during his lifetime, the market continues to be seduced - like Boch all those years ago - not only b
LINK: https://www.thesouthafrican.com/culture/art-artists/van-gogh-museum-at...
See more stories from thesouthafrican

Most recent headlines

05/01/2027

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be demoed at CES 2026

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...

09/10/2026

Dolby Expands Dolby OptiView Platform with New Capabilities at IBC 2026

September 10 2026, 06:00 (PDT) Dolby Expands Dolby OptiView Platform with New Capabilities at IBC 2026 New Sports Intelligence helps providers better unders...

07/10/2026

Dalet Flex LTS Delivers Smarter Media Operations from Ingest to Distribution

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...

24/09/2026

Manifold Technologies Appoints Ryhaan Williams as CCO for North America

Manifold Technologies Appoints Ryhaan Williams as CCO for North America Brie Clayton September 24, 2026 0 Comments Brings three decades of broadcast e...

24/09/2026

UNIFACHA Expands Educational Program with DaVinci Resolve Studio

UNIFACHA Expands Educational Program with DaVinci Resolve Studio Brie Clayton September 24, 2026 0 Comments Brazilian university empowers next generat...

24/09/2026

NABA To Convene Cyber University 2.0 To Address Cybersecurity Strategies

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

24/09/2026

Big Blue Marble Makes the Origin of Austrian Parliament V...

Viewers watching videos from the Austrian Parliament online will soon find it easier to verify the authenticity of the content. Big Blue Marble, an internationa...

24/09/2026

nsign and Sony collaborate to simplify digital signage de...

nsign, the digital signage SaaS platform built around its Simplify Complexity principle, is now officially certified for BRAVIA Professional Displays from Son...

24/09/2026

Viaplay Selects Encompass Altitude Scheduling to Transfor...

Encompass Digital Media today announced the successful migration of multiple Viaplay free-to-air channels, including TV3, TV6, TV8 and TV10, to its Altitude Sch...

24/09/2026

Standalone Streaming Services Continue to Decline in the U.S.

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

24/09/2026

Hollyland Unveils LARK M3 Wireless Audio System

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

24/09/2026

Adobe Completes Purchase Of Topaz Labs

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

24/09/2026

FCC to Vote on Satellite Spectrum, Unlicensed Ultra-Wideband Devices

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

24/09/2026

LYNX Technik Launches New Series 5000 Card

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

24/09/2026

KRK V SERIES MONITORS HELP INDUSTRY VETERAN SANTIAGO URI...

Music Supervisor, Composer, and Mixing Engineer Santiago Uribe has built a career around producing music for film and television, contributing to more than 40 p...

24/09/2026

NABA Cyber University to Convene Broadcast Industry Leade...

The North American Broadcasters Association (NABA) will hold a full-day cybersecurity summit focused on defending against growing cyber threats facing the broad...

24/09/2026

HARRY CORRY RENEWS LIVELINE SPONSORSHIP ON RT RADIO 1

The home interiors retailer signs up for third year as sponsor RT Commercial today announced that Harry Corry has signed up to a third year as sponsor of Live...

24/09/2026

How Open Science Can Help Researchers Prepare for the Next Pandemic

When COVID-19 emerged, scientists had a crucial advantage: Decades of prior research on coronaviruses meant they understood the virus' key proteins well eno...

24/09/2026

RT Radio 1 Folk Awards Tickets on Sale | Dolores Keane inducted into Hall of Fame

RT Radio 1 Folk Awards Tickets on Sale Dolores Keane to be inducted into the...

24/09/2026

Contain the Chaos: CONTROL Resonant' Launches on GeForce NOW

A warped Manhattan is waiting in the cloud this week. Remedy Entertainment's CONTROL Resonant brings Dylan Faden's extraordinary abilities and a paranat...

23/09/2026

University of Washington's New Sundodger Studios Leverages ST 2110 to Bring Broadcast, Videoboard, and Creative Under One Roof

Four control rooms support B1G+ streams, videoboard shows, creative content, and...

23/09/2026

Mountain West Conference Moves Replay Operations West, Cutting Late-Night Hours

By Andrew Cohen, SVG Coorespondant The Mountain West debuted its new Replay Operations Center at the start of this football season, bringing real-time collabor...

23/09/2026

SVG Students to Watch: Brian Short, Ball State University

The Taylorville, IL, native is pushing creative boundaries at Ball State, gaining reps across directing, technical directing, tape, and more than 100 ESPN+ broa...

23/09/2026

The Musical and the Power of Spiteful Thinking

Alexander Heller, Nevada Jose, Will Brill, and Giselle Bonilla pose with cast members at The Musical premiere during the 2026 Sundance Film Festival at Eccles...

23/09/2026

The Crow Hill Company release Children's Choir

Includes natural and processed patches The Crow Hill Company's latest sample library captures a children's choir comprising a troupe of boys perform...

23/09/2026

Kreuzberg Audio reveal Oberton

Plug-in offers six bands of saturation Kreuzberg Audio's product range includes a selection of plug-ins and virtual instruments aimed primarily at hard-...

23/09/2026

SoundBridge 3.2.0 arrives

Latest DAW update now live SoundBridge have announced that the latest update for the remote-collaboration-focused DAW is now available. The release of Sound...

23/09/2026

Koori Knockout returns home exclusively to NITV and SBS On Demand in 2026

Koori Knockout returns home exclusively to NITV and SBS On Demand in 2026 11 September, 2026 Media releases Fans can catch all the live action exclusively ...

23/09/2026

Rohde & Schwarz acquires NEOSAT and PHYTRONIC and strengthens its competencies in sovereign satellite communications

Rohde & Schwarz acquires NEOSAT and PHYTRONIC and strengthens its competencies i...

23/09/2026

NFVF SEDIBA CREATIVE ENTERPRISE PROGRAMME CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

1. ABOUT THE PROGRAMME The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) invites applications from experienced producers who own or manage a South African product...

23/09/2026

CALL FOR THE SEVENTH PRESIDENTIAL EMPLOYMENT STIMULUS PROGRAMME(PESP 7) FOCUSED ON THE AUDIO-VISUAL INDUSTRY IS OPEN

The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) is pleased to announce the opening...

23/09/2026

NHK Technologies Inc. Chooses Calrec for Sports Production

Download Now! To receive a short case study showcasing NHK Technologies, Inc. (NT) s audio setup, please enter the following details: -- First Name* Fir...

23/09/2026

McDonald's takes top spot as New Zealand's fast-food tastes evolve, according to Nielsen

Nielsen CMI data reveals a changing fast-food landscape, with value, convenience...

23/09/2026

AFP, Dalet To Collaborate On News Video Provenance, Authenticity

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

23/09/2026

Spectrum News NECN Launches Across New England

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

23/09/2026

COW Jobs: Blender on Windows - Generalist - Remote

COW Jobs: Blender on Windows - Generalist - Remote Brie Clayton September 23, 2026 0 Comments Application Users - Blender on Windows - Generalist Se...

23/09/2026

Bitfocus wins IBC2026 Best of Show Award for latest Butto...

Version 1.8 recognised for new workflow tools, boosted control panel flexibility and ease of integration into IP networks...

23/09/2026

Hiltron Reports a Successful IBC2026

Hiltron Communications reports a successful 2026 International Broadcasting Convention, held at the RAI Amsterdam. Exhibiting on stand A37 in Hall 1, Hiltron ex...

23/09/2026

LiveU Showcases AI Driven Production Alongside Resilient...

Reinforcing its long-term commitment to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) broadcast market, LiveU is presenting the Q Era at CABSAT 2026, on Stand H1-D35 ...

23/09/2026

AFP and Dalet Partner to Strengthen the Provenance and Au...

Agence France-Presse (AFP), a global news agency, and Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced a partnersh...

23/09/2026

Berklee Connect Unlocks the Power of a Global Network

Berklee Connect Unlocks the Power of a Global Network Katie Vitolins BM '04 knows firsthand what Berklee's alumni community can make possible. Now she...

23/09/2026

Study: Renewals for Streaming Shows Continue to Decline

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

23/09/2026

Study: More Than 4 in 10 U.S. Adults Own or Are Interested in Smart Glasses

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

23/09/2026

Television Critics Association Revises Bylaws to Address AI

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

23/09/2026

eX Celebrates Completion of Holland Mich. FTTP Network

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

23/09/2026

Gray Media Renews Ohio Valley Conference Deal

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

23/09/2026

QuickLink StudioPro Powers Next Generation Student Media...

Westminster Schools, a K through 12 school in Atlanta, Georgia with approximately 2,000 students, has transformed its student broadcast and digital storytelling...

23/09/2026

UK Pavilion Brings Leading British Technology to CABSAT a...

The 2026 edition of CABSAT and SATExpo may have a new home and dates in the diary, but it still retains a strong presence from UK companies in the GREAT Britain...

23/09/2026

Glensound marks 60 years with new audio developments at C...

Glensound will return to CABSAT with new developments in professional monitoring and Dante interfacing, alongside its established commentary, esports and parlia...

23/09/2026

Dolby and Meta Expand Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision Across Metas Ecosystem

September 23 2026, 17:00 (PDT) Dolby and Meta Expand Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision Across Metas Ecosystem Across Meta AI glasses, Instagram, and VR devices, ...