One of Van Gogh’s greatest watercolours could achieve a record price – The Art Newspaper

The Harvest in Provence (June 1888) comes up on the market on 19 Could at Sotheby’s in New York, with an estimate of $25m-$35m. Van Gogh painted the watercolour only a few days earlier than making his magnificent oil portray of the identical scene, The Harvest (June 1888).

Van Gogh had really made two watercolours of the wheatfields. The primary, The Blue Cart (June 1888), belongs to the Harvard Artwork Museums. It’s only not often displayed (for conservation causes), however will likely be occurring present later this yr of their exhibition On Location: Drawing the Open air (18 September-17 January 2027).

The second watercolour, the one to be offered at Sotheby’s, is bigger (49 x 61 cm), extra elaborate and is extra vibrant. Within the center distance of this composition, Van Gogh added two small horses and carts (one simply to the left of the centre and the opposite exterior the home on the proper).

In The Harvest in Provence, Van Gogh first sketched the panorama in pencil, then used a reed pen and ink to stipulate the important thing parts, and at last utilized at the very least eight totally different watercolours. Van Gogh had acquired the watercolour paints from Paris two weeks earlier. As Vincent then defined to his brother Theo, “I’d love to do some pen drawings, however colored in flat tints like Japanese prints”. They have been each admirers of the artwork of Japan.

An examination of the paper of the Sotheby’s watercolour reveals that it has a Whatman watermark, exhibiting that it was made at a mill in Kent, England. A month after ending The Harvest in Provence, Vincent wrote to his brother Theo to say that he was getting by “so many sheets of Whatman”.

As he had made the oil portray very quickly after the watercolour, it is perhaps assumed that the work on paper was a merely preparatory sketch for the oil, however this was not essentially the case. The Sotheby’s watercolour is signed, which he solely did often, and is even titled within the lower-left nook (“La Moisson en Provence”), suggesting that he accomplished it as a standalone murals. Certainly, Vincent proposed to Theo that the Paris artwork seller Georges Thomas is perhaps involved in promoting it.

Vincent posted the watercolour to Theo on 15 or 16 June—simply earlier than he completed the oil portray. If he had regarded the watercolour primarily as a preparatory sketch, he would presumably have hung onto it a bit longer. However having labored on the watercolour, he had larger appreciation of the view, informing the ultimate oil portray.

In the event you look nearer, the compositions of the watercolour and the oil are barely totally different. Most noticeably, the horizon is increased within the remaining oil portray and the view seems to be from a barely extra elevated place.

Van Gogh’s view was from the outskirts of Arles, going through north-east. Each the Sotheby’s watercolour and the oil portray seem to have been executed from a raised level, which means that Van Gogh labored from one of many remaining windmills within the space, almost certainly the Moulin de Jonquet. This construction was depicted in one other of his work (the mill’s base nonetheless survives at 27 Rue Mireille). In La Maison de La Crau (The Previous Mill) (September 1888), the three buildings within the fields within the distance are prone to be these which seem within the centre of the watercolour.

Past the watercolour’s foreground lies a patchwork of fields within the plain of La Crau, with ripened wheat at harvest time. The road of remoted farmhouses provides depth to the composition and attracts within the eye. Within the higher left are the ruins of the traditional abbey of Montmajour. On the horizon are Les Alpilles (Little Alps) and, barely nearer on the proper facet, the Mont de Cordes.

A considerably related view was drawn in a a lot easier model by the illustrator Albert Robida just a few years after Van Gogh. Artists have been clearly interested in this expansive panorama with its distant hills.

Since Van Gogh’s time, the city of Arles has sprawled northwards, though some thought of his scene can nonetheless be glimpsed as we speak. This {photograph}, taken from the tower of the LUMA Arles artwork centre, reveals that, within the distance, many of the space nonetheless stays agricultural.

Later story

Vincent was clearly happy with The Harvest in Provence, which was among the many works he urged Theo present to a Paris seller. He wrote to his brother that, “maybe we’d decide up a couple of sous [small coins] from…Thomas” for a handful of works, together with the harvest watercolour. Georges Thomas, an unconventional character who supported up-and-coming artists, apparently did not promote the Van Goghs.

By 1899, the watercolour had been acquired by the Berlin-based, progressive artwork critic Julius Meier-Graefe. That yr, he reproduced The Harvest in Provence as a lithograph for a portfolio. This was the primary color picture of a Van Gogh work that was revealed anyplace. Within the print, the outer edges (together with the title) have been omitted, nevertheless it provides an excellent impression of the artist’s authentic colouration.

By 1930, The Harvest in Provence had been acquired by London and Rutland-based collector Anne Kessler after passing by a number of house owners. Kessler was the niece of Dutch-born collector Frank Stoop, who in 1933 bequeathed 4 Van Goghs to the Tate Gallery.

Kessler died in 1983. There have been hopes that The Harvest in Provence may also be bequeathed to the Tate, however that was to not be (though 14 of her different French photos got). The watercolour handed to a household belief and, in 1997, it was offered at Sotheby’s, going to a overseas collector believed to be a New York-based Austrian financier. Initially a UK export licence was deferred, to permit a British purchaser to accumulate the work, however the Tate by no means tried to boost the sale worth of £8.9m.

The Harvest in Provence was offered once more at Sotheby’s in 2003, fetching $10.3m. Since then, it has featured in a number of exhibitions, loaned through the Palm Springs seller Heather James. This implies that the current vendor could also be American.

When The Harvest in Provence comes up at Sotheby’s for the third time on 17 Could, it may effectively exceed the report worth paid for a Van Gogh work on paper. In 2021, Wheat Stacks offered at Christie’s for $31m (totalling $35.8m with charges). Solely 5 different works on paper by any European or American artist have offered for greater than this: works by Munch, Raphael (two drawings), Picasso and Degas.

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 embrace Dwelling with Vincent van Gogh: The Houses & Landscapes that formed the Artist (White Lion Publishing 2019, UK and US), which gives 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 gives 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 be aware that he doesn’t undertake authentications.

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