Special envoy to Pont-Aven (Finistère)
Who had a hollow enough nose to acquire the only painting sold by Van Gogh during his lifetime?
To find out, you have to go to Finistère, to the Pont-Aven Museum.
And get to know, through an exhibition dedicated to her, Anna Boch (1848-1936).
In January 1890, at the Salon des XX founded in Brussels six years earlier by a union of modern artists led by her cousin, the art critic Octave Maus, this rich heiress to the family earthenware (future firm Villeroy & Boch) and recognized painter of the fin de siècle in Belgium stops in front of
La Vigne rouge in Montmajour
.
“I offered 400 francs for this painting.
(…) It will look good in a living room corner.”
Of which act.
Other paintings by the cursed genius were on offer at the same gallery, including two from his famous series of sunflowers (today at the National Gallery in London and the Neue Pinakothek in Munich, an equivalent bouquet having been sold for 39.9 million dollars at Christie’s…
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