Cypress, Sky and Country
Vincent Van Gogh (circa 1889)
Part of the Austrian Kunsthistorisches Museum’s holdings, apparently this painting disappeared from the public view around 40 years ago. No one is saying whether it was lost or stolen, or even if anyone noticed it was missing until it turned up in a safety deposit box in Decemeber when the Spanish Tax Authorites seized 542 safe deposit boxes owned by alleged tax offenders owing about € 319,000,000 (roughly the equivalent of CDN$478,000,000)
The painting is 35 by 32 centimetres (13.7 by 12.5 inches) and pretty nearly everyone believes it to be genuine because of three seals from the:
- Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (April 8, 1944~during Nazi occupation),
- Museum der Schöne Künste, (undated) Berlin, and
- Kunsthistorisches Institut der Universität Wien, (April 10, 1974)
The only doubt of the painting’s authenticity has been raised by Dr. Friedrich Polleroß, head of the archives at the Vienna Institute.
My internet researches have revealed that the painting in question is not the one above, but rather this one.
The question that arises in my own crime writer mind is whether the 1974 seal is in fact a forgery, or if in fact the painting was stolen with the complicity of people at the Austrian Institution.