Only a handful of Van Gogh paintings come to auction every year, but Sotheby’s in New York has two on offer on 12-13 November. One is an early Dutch painting, with a relatively modest estimate for a Van Gogh work, and the other is from the artist’s more sought-after Paris period, The Art Newspaper reports.
One of the paintings to be auctioned at Sotheby’s is People strolling in a Park in Paris, dating from autumn 1886.
In 1920 it was bought by the ophthalmologist Emil Hahnloser and is now being sold by his heirs. Most of the Hahnloser collection has been on display in the Villa Flora, the family home in Winterthur, Switzerland (and shown in their travelling exhibitions), but the Van Gogh is privately owned by an heir. It was displayed in Tate’s Van Gogh and Britain show earlier this year, although before that it had last been exhibited in 1947.
Since the 1920s the Paris painting has been entitled “Le Bois de Boulogne”, but specialists at the Van Gogh Museum now believe that it depicts a park in the centre of the capital, probably Parc Monceau, which was near the residence of the Van Gogh brothers. This is because of what appears to be an apartment block depicted in the back of the landscape, which makes it less likely that it was the Bois de Boulogne. The estimate for People strolling in a Park in Paris is $5m-$7m.
The other painting was painted during Van Gogh’s stay in the remote province of Drenthe, in the northern Netherlands, dates from October 1883. Entitled Paysan brûlant de mauvaises herbes (Peasant burning weeds), it is a study of a bonfire in a field on a dark autumn evening. The estimate is $600,000-$800,000.
Via The Art Newspaper
