How did the only painting sold by Van Gogh in his lifetime end up in Russia? – The Art Newspaper

The Purple Winery is amongst Van Gogh’s most dramatically colored Provençal landscapes, however it is usually famed for being the one portray that the artist is definite to have offered. It went for 400 francs (then £16) at a Brussels exhibition in March 1890, 4 months earlier than his suicide.

The portray is now in Russia, on the Pushkin State Museum of Nice Arts in Moscow. It was determined to preserve the image, to make sure its long-term preservation. This led to the primary investigation of The Purple Winery utilizing trendy scientific strategies, unearthing fascinating discoveries. 

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 22 February 2022 the portray has not travelled to exhibitions and much fewer worldwide guests go to the Pushkin.

Van Gogh got here throughout the winery on a late afternoon stroll with Paul Gauguin on 28 October 1888, 5 days after his pal’s arrival in Arles. Choosing the grapes usually takes place in September in Provence, however the ripe harvest appears to have been late that 12 months. On round 11 October Vincent had written to his brother Theo: “There are bunches weighing a kilo, even—the grape is magnificent this 12 months, from the positive autumn days.”

Vincent described the scene he had witnessed with Gauguin: “A purple winery, fully purple like purple wine. Within the distance it turned yellow, after which a inexperienced sky with a solar, fields violet and glowing yellow right here and there after the rain during which the setting solar was mirrored.”

Though Van Gogh preferred to color landscapes open air, he accomplished The Purple Winery again in his studio—utilizing his creativeness. Gauguin was then encouraging him to make his footage extra artistic, much less literal. Little question the 2 artists mentioned this winery scene on their return after the stroll—maybe over a glass or two of the native Provençal purple wine.

Van Gogh’s fiery colouration is definitely excessive. The vines are a lot redder than one would anticipate, with Vincent describing it as the color of the plant Virginia Creeper. On the fitting of the composition is what may seem at first look to be a river, however it’s a street, glistening moist after current rain. The massive solar, setting in a late autumnal afternoon, produces an eerily yellow sky.

Within the higher left, the row of bushes shelters a street operating north-east from Arles. On the horizon, to the far proper, one can simply make out the distant ruins of the abbey of Montmajour, painted in gentle blue.

The Pushkin Museum’s examination of The Purple Winery revealed necessary particulars about how the image was developed. Components of the solar and sky are created from paint squeezed straight from the tube onto the canvas, with the artist typically utilizing his finger to clean it out.

A technical evaluation reveals that the colouration of the sky has been partly misplaced. Van Gogh used chrome yellow paint, which darkens with publicity to gentle. His authentic yellows would have been even brighter and nonetheless extra dramatic.

Van Gogh additionally made modifications to the composition. The person standing within the street within the higher proper was initially a lady wearing a skirt, white shirt and hat.

The outstanding girl in darkish blue bending over a basket, within the central foreground, was added later. The girl on the far proper, by the sting of the street, wears the normal costume of the Arlésiennes, the famed ladies of Arles. The Pushkin specialists recommend that she represents Van Gogh’s pal Marie Ginoux, who along with her husband ran the Café de la Gare, just some doorways away from the Yellow Home, the artist’s residence and studio.

The Purple Winery has an uncommon historical past. In April 1889 Vincent despatched the portray to Theo in Paris. Describing it as “very stunning”, Theo hung it within the Parisian condo he had simply moved into together with his bride Jo Bonger.

A number of months afterwards Vincent was provided the chance to exhibit just a few work at an exhibition organised by the group Les Vingt in Brussels in January 1890. Amongst these he selected was The Purple Winery, which he requested Theo to dispatch. On the present it was purchased by fellow artist Anna Boch, who saved it till 1907.

Two years later The Purple Winery was acquired by the avant-garde Moscow collector and textile manufacturing facility proprietor Ivan Morozov. The asking value had risen to 30,000 francs, a sign of Van Gogh’s speedy rise to fame.

Morozov’s assortment was nationalised in 1918, a 12 months after the Russian Revolution. In 1919 he emigrated to Finland, dying in 1921. Initially Morozov’s work had been saved in his Moscow mansion, which was was a public museum.

In 1948, The Purple Winery was among the many works transferred to the Pushkin Museum. Nonetheless throughout Stalin’s later years it was not on show, since he regarded Trendy French artwork as inappropriate for a Communist society. Following de-Stalinization, after the chief’s dying in 1953, the Van Gogh as soon as extra went on present. The Purple Winery has remained in Moscow and has not been despatched out on mortgage for over 60 years.

The query of the portray’s situation just lately got here up with the organisation of a significant exhibition of the Morozov assortment in Paris. Ultimately it was determined that the Van Gogh was too fragile to journey. The Pushkin director Marina Loshak admitted that it was “very unhappy” that this “unwell” portray couldn’t to exterior exhibitions. Therefore the choice to preserve it.

The exhibition The Morozov Assortment: Icons of Trendy Artwork was on on the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris in 2022 (with practically 200 works of Trendy artwork, however with out The Purple Winery).

One query that the Pushkin could now have to think about is the presentation of The Purple Winery, which has been hung in an ornate gold body. This body in all probability dates from the time of Morozov’s acquisition, in 1909. It has develop into a part of the historical past of the portray, so it’s unlikely to be modified.

However a elaborate gilt body was under no circumstances what Vincent had meant. In a letter to Theo he gave his personal views on framing: “easy strips of wooden nailed on the stretching body and painted.” He drew an accompanying tough thumbnail sketch of the framed portray of The Purple Winery.

Van Gogh’s companion Gauguin additionally painted his personal depiction of the winery which they’d seen collectively throughout their stroll close to Montmajour. However his model of the scene might hardly have been extra totally different. Certainly, at first look, it appears little like an autumnal harvest.

Gauguin’s portray, which he initially entitled Human Distress (November 1888), focuses on a melancholic girl whose determine was impressed by a contorted Peruvian mummy that the artist had seen in a Paris museum. Behind her are two rows of dense vines, with a few stooping pickers, set in opposition to a robust yellow-ochre background.

Van Gogh commented on Gauguin’s approach, saying that the composition with the grieving girl had come from his pal’s “head”, from his creativeness. “If he doesn’t spoil it or go away it unfinished it is going to be very stunning and unusual,” Vincent commented.

Gauguin himself believed it was his “greatest image” of the 12 months—though its sombre title can hardly have boosted the possibilities of a sale. However like Van Gogh’s portray it, too, quickly discovered a purchaser—Emile Schuffenecker, a progressive artist pal. It was within the creative circle of the avant-garde that the work of each Van Gogh and Gauguin was first appreciated—and located patrons.

REVISED: Initially printed on 4 February 2022, this weblog submit was up to date with new data on 15 August 2025.

Martin Bailey is a number one Van Gogh specialist and particular correspondent for The Artwork Newspaper. He has curated exhibitions on the Barbican Artwork Gallery, Compton Verney/Nationwide Gallery of Scotland and Tate Britain.

Martin has written various bestselling books on Van Gogh’s years in France: The Sunflowers Are Mine: The Story of Van Gogh’s Masterpiece (Frances Lincoln 2013, UK and US), Studio of the South: Van Gogh in Provence (Frances Lincoln 2016, UK and US), Starry Night time: Van Gogh on the Asylum (White Lion Publishing 2018, UK and US) and Van Gogh’s Finale: Auvers and the Artist’s Rise to Fame (Frances Lincoln 2021, UK and US). The Sunflowers are Mine (2024, UK and US) and Van Gogh’s Finale (2024, UK and US) are additionally now obtainable in a extra compact paperback format.

His different current books embody Dwelling with Vincent van Gogh: The Houses & Landscapes that formed the Artist (White Lion Publishing 2019, UK and US), which supplies an summary of the artist’s life. The Illustrated Provence Letters of Van Gogh has been reissued (Batsford 2021, UK and US). My Pal Van Gogh/Emile Bernard supplies the primary English translation of Bernard’s writings on Van Gogh (David Zwirner Books 2023, UKand US).

To contact Martin Bailey, please electronic mail vangogh@theartnewspaper.com

Please word that he doesn’t undertake authentications.

Discover all of Martin’s adventures with Van Gogh right here