The battle between the Van Gogh Museum and two of the most experienced experts on the artist has intensified. This follows publication of the book, Vincent van Gogh: The Lost Arles Sketchbook, which was released by Abrams on 15 November. It reproduced 65 drawings said to have been done in 1888-90.
The museum’s latest statement on 29 November criticises Bogomila Welsh-Ovcharov (the author) and Ronald Pickvance (who wrote the foreword) for their “excessively easygoing attitude... towards questions of authenticity”. It says that the sketches “were not made by Van Gogh” and are “much later imitations of Van Gogh’s drawings by someone inspired by reproductions”.
The museum’s specialists go through the evidence, pointing to problems over the type of ink, the apparent discolouration of the ink, the sort of pen or brush used, topographical errors in the sketches, the style, the order in which the disbound sketchbook has been reconstructed and the lack of a firm provenance.
On the provenance, Welsh-Ovcharov cites as key evidence a diary notebook apparently used in the Café de la Gare which records that Van Gogh gave the sketches to the café owners Joseph and Marie Ginoux. The museum statement reveals that in 2012 it was shown an entry dated 19 June 1888, stating that “the owner has placed the painter’s bedroom furniture in the hallway and would like to see you”. However, this sheet was not published in the new book, which instead reproduces another page dated 10 June with virtually the same phrase. It would be very curious for the same phrase to be repeated nine days later in the diary and the museum experts therefore conclude that the notebook is “unreliable”.
The Art Newspaper can disclose that as early as February 2010, more than three years before Welsh-Ovcharov became involved, images of the 19 June page were being shown to specialists. Welsh-Ovcharov apparently only learned about the 19 June page earlier this month and now says that it was “inadvertently kept” by the family of the sketchbook owner, but “it does not change the analysis or my conclusion”.
The Van Gogh Museum statement concludes that the new book “raises more questions than it answers” and it calls on Welsh-Ovcharov and Abrams (along with the French publisher, Seuil) to provide a “clear and open response”. Until then, “we see no point in a scholarly debate and our contribution to the debate ends here”.
• Martin Bailey is the author of Studio of the South: Van Gogh in Provence (Frances Lincoln)
