For Sale: $20-30 million (at least!)
Tracking down lost art is a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack. So every story of success is worthy of note.
Looted, then lost, now finding its way back into the light of day: on November 11th a Vincent van Gogh watercolor on paper, executed in Arles in 1888 and titled Meules de blé, will be auctioned. Should anyone have a spare few tens of millions please inform yourself in a timely fashion on the Christie’s website – as I write “bidding begins in 29 days”!
This all came to my attention today via an article in Zeit Online written by one of Germany’s most prominent commentators on the art market, Stefan Koldehoff, who has written widely on provenance and stolen art. This particular work’s journey out of the nineteenth, through the twentieth century and into this, and across one continent and into another, sounds extraordinary – and it is, but it’s also not; for the stories surrounding the art – makers, buyers, sellers – that got entangled in the horrors of fascism and its aftermath are legendary, and are emblematic of the greater story of war, dispossession and displacement that defined that time.
At the moment I can’t seem to find a good English language report, but I dare say something will turn up – at the latest when a $$$ record is set in New York – money always sells! On the Christie’s site linked to above, the so-called “lot essay” gives some excellent historical background – from the time of execution until now. Quite how this work found its way into the United States remains unclear, but an amicable settlement has been reached between the current owners and the heirs of the two families in whose possession the work was up until its confiscation by the Nazis in occupied Paris in 1941.