It was inventoried among Theo van Gogh's collection of his brother's works in 1890 and then sold by Theo's widow, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger to a Paris art dealer in 1901.
During the year of 1970, re-emerges as part of the estate of the recently deceased Norwegian industrialist Christian Nicolai Mustad.
However, Mustad was advised by the French ambassador to Sweden that it was not a Van Gogh. As a consequence, "Sunset at Montmajour" was stashed away in the attic, where it stayed until the
current owners purchased it from him.
In 1991, the unsigned painting was taken to the Van Gogh Museum, but at the time the museum experts didn't conclude as authentic.
About twenty years later, its owners brought back to the museum to seek
authentication, and its researchers have been examining it
ever since.
Under the supervision of Louis van Tilborgh, the Van Gogh Museum’s senior researcher, it was recently concluded that the work
was a genuine van Gogh painting because the pigments correspond with
those of van Gogh’s palette from Arles. “This time, we have
topographical information plus a number of other factors that have
helped us to establish authenticity,” said the museum director, Mr. Axel Rüger.
“Research is so much more advanced now, so we could come to a very
different conclusion.”
Mr. van Tilborgh states that "Sunset at Monmajour" was was painted on the same type of canvas
and with the same type of underpainting van Gogh used for at least one
other painting of the same area, “The Rocks.”
The work was also listed as part of Theo van Gogh’s collection in 1890.
It has “180” painted on the back, which corresponds to the number in
the collection inventory. “That was the clincher,” he said
The date of completion of the painting has been identified as July 4, 1888. This conclusion was based upon a letter that Vincent van Gogh wrote to his brother on the next day, where he discribes the scene:
“Yesterday, at sunset, I was on a stony heath, where very small, twisted
oaks grow, in the background a ruin on the hill, and wheat fields in
the valley. It was romantic, it couldn’t be more so, à la Monticelli,
the sun was pouring its very yellow rays over the bushes and the ground,
absolutely a shower of gold. And all the lines were beautiful; the
whole scene had charming nobility.”
The painter moved to Arles in February 1888, where he spent time exploring the
landscapes in Provence and doing plein air painting. Van Gogh
was particularly fascinated by the flat landscape around the hill of
Montmajour, with its rocky outcroppings and hay-colored fields.
In a letter dated July 1888, he said that he had been to Montmajour at least 50 times “to see the view over the plain.”
Art historian Mr. Leeman, said that “in hindsight, many pointers in his
letters and entries in catalogs of the 1900s have been linked to other
paintings or misidentified,” adding, “Here, we see a painting that fits
those descriptions exactly.”
Depicting dusk in the hilly, forested landscape of
Montmajour, in Provence, with wheat fields and the ruins of a
Benedictine abbey in the distance, the 73.3 cm × 93.3 cm (28.9 in × 36.7 in) oil painting was completed during the most important period of van Gogh's life, when he created his significant masterpieces, such as 'Sunflowers,' 'The Bedroom' and 'The Yellow House.'
"Sunset at Montmajour" will be on display at the van Gogh Museum during one year, starting on September 24, as part of the current exhibition, "Van Gogh at Work," which focuses on other new discoveries about the painter’s artistic
development.
According to Mr. Rüger, the current owners have not indicated what
they intend to do with it after that.
This is the first full-size painting by Van Gogh to be discovered since 1928.
