Hong Kong Crowds Queue for Van Gogh Unseen for 60 Years

Hong Kong (GNP): Hundreds of people queued in Hong Kong on Tuesday to view a Vincent van Gogh painting that has not been publicly exhibited in more than six decades. The work will go under the hammer at Sotheby’s in New York, where it is expected to fetch about $180 million.

The auction, set for November 18, will test the strength of the high-end art market. Collectors there have continued to compete for scarce trophy works, undeterred by broader economic uncertainty.

The painting is “Châtaigniers en fleurs”, or “Chestnut Trees in Blossom”, which Van Gogh completed in May 1890. It is one of the most important works from his final days in the French village of Auvers-sur-Oise, where he died about two months later, aged 37. It depicts a massive blossoming chestnut tree whose flowering canopy dominates the composition.

Scott Niichel of Sotheby’s modern and contemporary art department in New York said the painting is poised to set a new auction record for a Van Gogh work. Works from this last period, painted just after his release from a psychiatric asylum in Saint-Remy-de-Provence, rarely come to market. The sale is therefore likely to draw the attention of collectors, museums and investors.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sotheby's (@sothebys)

That rarity helps explain the turnout in Hong Kong. Li Shanshan, a 50-year-old art lover, travelled about two and a half hours from the southern city of Shenzhen to see the work. She said she had never heard of the painting before and wanted to see it with her own eyes.

The painting will be sold as part of a collection of 12 long-unseen works, which also includes pieces by Paul Cezanne and Claude Monet. Five of them were unveiled at Sotheby’s in London in late September, among them Cezanne’s “Arlequin” and Monet’s “Le Jardin des Tuileries”.

Also Read: Selma Blair Faces Assault Charges After Flight Altercation

The long absence from public view follows a trail of private owners. After Van Gogh’s death in July 1890, the painting passed to his brother Theo, then to Theo’s widow Johanna van Gogh-Bonger and their son Vincent Willem. It was later owned by German publisher Samuel Fischer, founder of S. Fischer Verlag. It then entered the collection of George “Buddy” DeSylva, the American songwriter, film producer and co-founder of Capitol Records.

In 1953, collector Harriet Harris-Jonas acquired it. Her holdings were considered significant enough that New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art organised visits for patrons to view works in her Fifth Avenue apartment. The Blaquier family bought the painting from art dealer Wildenstein in 1975.

Niichel said, “This is a moment of extraordinary optimism, frenetic energy, enthusiasm, passion, and colour.”