The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen

The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen (Dutch: De pastorie in Nuenen), alternatively named The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring (Dutch: De pastorie in Nuenen in het voorjaar) or Spring Garden (Dutch: Lentetuin: F185, JH484), is an early oil painting by 19th-century Dutch post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh, created in May 1884 while he was living with his parents in Nuenen. Van Gogh made several drawings and oil paintings of the surrounding gardens and the garden façade of the parsonage.[1]

The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen
ArtistVincent van Gogh
YearMay 1884 (1884-05)
Catalogue
MediumOil on paper on panel
MovementPost Impressionism
Dimensions25 cm × 57 cm (9.8 in × 22 in)
LocationUnknown (stolen from the Singer Laren Museum on 30 March 2020)
OwnerGroninger Museum

The painting was in the collection of the Groninger Museum in The Netherlands from 1962 to 2020. On 30 March 2020, it was stolen from an exhibition at the Singer Laren museum in Laren which had been closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[2]

Background

Van Gogh lived in The Hague with Sien Hoornik and then alone for a few months in Drenthe in the northern Netherlands. He then went to live with his parents in the parsonage of the Dutch Reformed Church at Nuenen near Eindhoven in December 1883 where his father was pastor.[3] The family turned the laundry room into a studio in the back of the house.[4]

Van Gogh remained with his parents in Nuenen for nearly two years, producing about 200 drawings and paintings, including his first major work, The Potato Eaters. He moved to Antwerp in November 1885[5] and then to Paris in 1886.[6]

Description

In Nuenen, Van Gogh documented the changing seasons in his paintings of the parsonage's garden, which was enclosed by a high stone wall and included a duck pond with a boat dock, paths and hedges, flower and vegetable garden plots and an orchard.[7]

Preceded by a series of wintery drawings,[8] this work was probably painted in May 1884.[1] It depicts a view of the garden with a dark-clothed female figure in the foreground. In the distance are the ruins of the old church, also depicted in works such as Old Church Tower at Nuenen, before it was demolished in 1885.[9] It uses the dark palette of greens and browns, typical of Van Gogh's early work, with touches of green and red in the painting indicating that winter has passed and spring has begun.[10] In a letter that Van Gogh sent to Anthon van Rappard in March 1884, he mentioned the change in the seasons: "Ben ook zoekende naar de kleur van den wintertuin. Doch die is reeds een lente tuin - nu. En is iets heel anders geworden." ("Am also searching for the colour of the winter garden. But it is already a spring garden - now. And has become something completely different.")[11]

The painting is unusually wide, measuring 25 cm × 57 cm (9.8 in × 22.4 in) without its decorative frame, exceeding double square.[12] Van Gogh may have worked with the help of a perspective window (a wooden frame strung with wires).[13] It had been in the collection of the Groninger Museum, in the Dutch city of Groningen, since 1962[14] but was stolen in 2020.

  • Other examples of the parsonage garden at Nuenen in Van Gogh's work
  • Winter Garden ("Wintertuin"), pencil and ink drawing, March 1884, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (F1128, JH466)
  • The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Winter, pen and ink drawing, March 1884, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest (F1130, JH465)
  • Parsonage Garden, April 1884, small drawing sent to Anthon van Rappard, private collection (F1188)
  • Old Church Tower at Nuenen, May 1884, oil on canvas on panel, Foundation E.G. Bührle Collection, Zürich (F88, JH490)
  • The Parsonage Garden in Nuenen in the Snow, oil on canvas on panel, January 1885, Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena (F194, JH603)
  • The Parsonage Garden in Nuenen in the Snow, oil on canvas on panel, January 1885, Armand Hammer Museum of Art, Los Angeles (F67, JH604)
  • The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen, watercolour on paper, October/November 1885, Noordbrabants Museum, ’s-Hertogenbosch (F1234, JH954)
  • The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen with Pond and Figures, oil on panel, 1885, destroyed by fire in Rotterdam in the Second World War (F124, JH955)

Theft

The painting was stolen from the Singer Laren museum in Laren, North Holland on 30 March 2020, Van Gogh's birthday. The painting had been on loan from the Groninger Museum.[2] At the time of the theft, the museum was closed to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[2][15] Police said the thief or thieves smashed through the glass doors with a sledgehammer around 3:15 a.m. and left before law enforcement responded to the alarm.[16][17] Museum director Jan Rudolph de Lorm said, "I'm shocked and unbelievably annoyed that this has happened."[18]

In June, photographs of the painting with a copy of the New York Times dated 30 May were sent to detective Arthur Brand. Also in the photo was the book Meesterdief (English: Masterthief). He compared this to the theft of two paintings from the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam in 2002. Groniger Museum director Andreas Blühm said he was pleased that the painting still existed and believed the photographs were genuine.[19] Since 1988, twenty-eight Van Gogh paintings have been stolen in the Netherlands, but all have been recovered.[20]

See also

References
  1. Rea, Naomi (30 March 2020). "Opportunistic Thieves Just Stole a Prized Van Gogh Landscape From a Locked-Down Dutch Museum Under Cover of Night". Artnet. Archived from the original on 31 March 2020. Retrieved 30 March 2020.
  2. "Vincent van Gogh in Nuenen, The Netherlands". Van Gogh Route. Retrieved 30 March 2020.
  3. "The Vicarage at Nuenen, 1885". Permanent Collection. Van Gogh Museum. 2005–2011. Archived from the original on 28 October 2007. Retrieved 15 May 2011.
  4. "Peasant Painter". Van Gogh Museum. Retrieved 31 March 2020.
  5. Siegal, Nina (16 October 2013). "Becoming Vincent Van Gogh: The Paris Years". The New York Times. New York City: New York Times Company. Archived from the original on 16 November 2013. Retrieved 31 March 2020.
  6. Fell, Derek (2005) [2004]. Van Gogh's Women: Vincent's Love Affairs and Journey Into Madness. New York City: Carroll & Graf Publishers. p. 56. ISBN 0-7432-0233-3.
  7. Route, Van Gogh. "Old Church, Nuenen, The Netherlands". Van Gogh Route. Retrieved 31 March 2020.
  8. van Heugten, S. (2018). Van Gogh and the Seasons. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-17971-1. Retrieved 31 March 2020.
  9. Letter 435, on or about Saturday, 8 March 1884, vangoghletters.org
  10. "Burglary at Singer Laren". Singer Laren. 30 March 2020. Retrieved 31 March 2020.
  11. Lentetuin, de pastorietuin te Nuenen in het voorjaar (1884) - Vincent van Gogh, artsalonholland.nl
  12. Lentetuin, de pastorietuin te Nuenen in het voorjaar, Groninger Museum
  13. Boffey, Daniel (30 March 2020). "Van Gogh painting stolen from Dutch museum". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 1 April 2020.
  14. Verweij, Hilde (30 March 2020). "Van Gogh painting stolen from Dutch museum during coronavirus shutdown". Reuters. Archived from the original on 1 April 2020. Retrieved 30 March 2020.
  15. "Video shows thief stole van Gogh painting with sledgehammer". The Sydney Morning Herald. 23 April 2020. Retrieved 23 April 2020.
  16. "Dutch Museum Says Van Gogh Painting Stolen in Overnight Raid". The New York Times. Associated Press. 30 March 2020. Archived from the original on 31 March 2020. Retrieved 30 March 2020.
  17. "Robbers taunt police with photos of stolen Van Gogh". Dutch News. Retrieved 19 June 2020.
  18. Bailey, Martin (3 April 2020). "In recent decades 28 Van Goghs have been stolen in the Netherlands—but all have been recovered". The Art Newspaper. Retrieved 11 April 2020.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.