A Vincent van Gogh painting created during the last two months of his life has gone on public display in London ahead of its auction, with a value of $180m (£136m).
Châtaigniers en fleurs (Chestnut Tree in Flower) was painted in May 1890 shortly after Van Gogh arrived in the French village of Auvers-sur-Oise. He died just weeks later.
The work is part of a private collection with an “almost mythical status”, held for more than 50 years and likened to a miniature version of Paris’s Musée d’Orsay. It is one of 12 impressionist and modern masterpieces from the collection of the Argentinian collector Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier, who died in 2020.
A ‘historic moment’ for the art world
Philip Hook, a former director of impressionist and modern art at Sotheby’s and a regular expert on BBC One’s Antiques Roadshow, said the opening of the collection to buyers was a “historic moment”.
“For decades the Blaquier-Arrieta collection has been the stuff of legend: whispered about, kept from public view, it has attained an almost mythical status in the art world,” he said.
“One of the last great private collections of impressionist and post-impressionist art, it was formed when major examples by the great names were still within reach.”
Other masterpieces in the sale
The Sotheby’s auction will also include Paul Cézanne’s Harlequin, painted in the late 19th century and valued at $150m.
They will be sold along with 10 other significant works by Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin, Alfred Sisley, André Derain, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Maurice de Vlaminck.
All 12 paintings, which are expected to fetch more than $450m in total, have gone on display at Sotheby’s in London on Wednesday for two days before being flown to Taipei, then Hong Kong and Paris before the auction on 18 November in New York.
Provenance and rarity
Van Gogh painted at least four major works featuring chestnut trees in Auvers-sur-Oise during a period of optimism and energy after his discharge from a psychiatric hospital at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. After his death in July 1890, Châtaigniers en fleurs passed to his brother, Theo. A subsequent owner was George Gard “Buddy” DeSylva, the US songwriter and film producer who co-founded Capitol Records.
It is one of only eight paintings Van Gogh produced in Auvers that are in private hands.
Simon Shaw, a senior art adviser at Sotheby’s, said the collection felt “like a small museum – a miniature Musée d’Orsay, now opening its doors for the very first time”.
