Artwork consultants have referred to as into query New York–based mostly LMI Group Worldwide’s declare {that a} portray of a fisherman discovered at a storage sale is a long-lost work by Vincent van Gogh. In a prolonged report, the corporate concluded that its investigation “has yielded the proof required to establish [the unknown work] as an autograph work by the artist.”
Wouter van der Veen, a scholar specializing within the Dutch Submit-Impressionist who beforehand labored for Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, instructed ARTnews that he doesn’t imagine the paintings, titled Elimar and dated by LMI Group to 1889, the yr earlier than van Gogh’s demise, is genuine. He mentioned “the portray method and the selection of colours are very totally different from van Gogh’s… The strains, the strokes, the impasto, the whole lot may be very totally different.”
In his message to ARTnews, van der Veen, who has not reviewed the paintings in individual, advised that LMI Group’s intention was to fetch a excessive worth as soon as the work was acknowledged as an genuine van Gogh. In line with a report by the Wall Road Journal, LMI Group believes the work could possibly be price at the very least $15 million. (The costliest van Gogh work to ever promote at public sale was for $117 million at Christie’s New York in 2022.)
In an electronic mail to ARTnews, LMI Group mentioned that the $15 million determine “represents not an assumed valuation of Elimar however the flooring of a valuation that will justify the time and expense of a complete forensic evaluation of the type undertaken for Elimar.” Moreover, by producing the report backed by analysis, LMI Group has “the expectation that the portray will likely be accessible for acquisition sooner or later, doubtlessly in a museum or assortment the place it should stay accessible to students and the general public.”
A number of artwork consultants have additionally argued that the work was truly painted by a little-known Twentieth-century Danish artist referred to as Henning Elimar, who died in 1989.
On its web site, LMI Group says that it identifies what it calls “orphaned artworks” by “utilizing rigorous knowledge science and proprietary expertise” to “authenticate, underwrite, and produce to market beforehand unknown or forgotten artworks from the world’s nice artists.”
The corporate purchased the portray in 2019 from an nameless antiques collector for an undisclosed sum. The earlier proprietor had paid lower than $50 for it after discovering the canvas at a storage sale in Minnesota. LMI Group then assembled a group of 20 consultants and organizations —together with chemists, curators, and patent attorneys—who compiled a 458-page doc arguing that the work is an genuine van Gogh.
William J. Havlicek, who printed a 2010 guide titled Van Gogh’s Untold Journey that examined the artist’s letters, served because the lead artwork historian for analysis on the challenge. Scientific Evaluation of High quality Artwork (SAFA), a fabric science agency, carried out the scientific evaluation on the portray, led by its president Jennifer Mass. She has been a professor of conservation science for over 25 years and has analyzed 4 different van Goghs, in accordance with a SAFA spokesperson.
(Per a remark within the report, “no scholar, scientist or establishment who or which LMI Group engaged in reference to the knowledge introduced on this report has any current, future, contingent, direct, or oblique monetary curiosity within the portray Elimar. Every has been compensated at that individual’s customary charge of compensation for that individual’s skilled companies.)
The corporate spent greater than $30,000 investigating the portray, going as far as to genetically check a hair that was embedded within the canvas within the hope it belonged to van Gogh. (The consequence was “inconclusive,” because the report states.)
LMI Group mentioned it believes the portrait would have been created whereas van Gogh was on the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole psychiatric sanitarium in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France. The artist checked himself into the sanitarium and he remained there from Could 1889 to Could 1890. Throughout this time, he painted The Starry Evening (1889) and different iconic works.
Van Gogh Museum’s Second Dismissal
On January 31, the Van Gogh Museum mentioned—for the second time—that Elimar just isn’t by van Gogh. “Primarily based on our opinion, which we beforehand expressed in 2019 concerning the portray, we keep our view that this isn’t an genuine portray by Vincent van Gogh,” the Dutch establishment devoted to the artist wrote in an electronic mail to ArtDependence Journal.
In 2019, the museum instructed LMI Group that the portray couldn’t be attributed to van Gogh for stylistic causes. In line with LMI Group, representatives from the Van Gogh Museum haven’t evaluated the portray in individual. In an electronic mail to the museum, LMI Group’s chairman, president, and CEO Lawrence M. Shindell mentioned, “We’re … puzzled why the Van Gogh Museum invested lower than 24 hours to summarily reject the details and proof introduced within the 456-page report with out providing any significant explanations.”
The Van Gogh Museum didn’t reply to ARTnews for added remark.
Van der Veen, the van Gogh scholar who additionally not too long ago based the nonprofit Van Gogh Academy in France, wrote on February 2 on LinkedIn: “The so-called van Gogh portray of a fisherman … was painted by Henning ELIMAR, a Danish artist.”
The phrase “Elimar,” presumed to be the sitter’s identify by LMI Group, is scrawled within the decrease righthand nook of the portray, the place artists sometimes signal their names. LMI Group’s report doesn’t state if it dominated out Elimar as a attainable creator of the portray in query. In an electronic mail to ARTnews, LMI Group mentioned Elimar “was by no means thought-about as a possible writer of the work” as his oeuvre lacks “any similarities in model, method, material, or epoch.” Moreover the agency “didn’t establish any proof of twentieth-century supplies within the artists’ media.”
“After LMI Group printed their conclusions, it took lower than 48 hours for amateurs and van Gogh lovers” to establish the portray as by Elimar, he instructed ARTnews through LinkedIn messages.
In response to van der Veen’s feedback, LMI Group instructed ARTnews that the artist Henning Elimar “doesn’t seem to have included figures in his works.”
“[Elimar’s] pastoral landscapes bear no stylistic resemblance to the oil on canvas launched by LMI Group,” the corporate wrote in an electronic mail. “Along with a number of different bases for its authentication and courting, the portray launched by LMI Group is wholly in keeping with a nineteenth century palette and exhibits no proof of Twentieth century improvements. Mr. van der Veen has neither seen the portray nor apparently thought-about the findings in our report.”
A Character Referred to as Elimar
Within the 458-page report, LMI Group argues that van Gogh had a “voracious urge for food for studying” and that Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen was certainly one of his favourite writers. LMI Group claims a personality referred to as “Elimar” seems his 1848 novel The Two Baronesses and served because the inspiration for van Gogh’s portray.
Responding to LMI Group’s argument, van der Veen instructed ARTnews that he’s “the main scholar within the particular area of literary sources in van Gogh’s correspondence. As such, I’m in a great place to problem their … argument.” He identified that “references to my publications on the matter are … absent from LMI Group’s bibliography.”
Van der Veen mentioned he receives “50 to 100 requests a yr from people or organizations who imagine they personal an unknown van Gogh,” and that in his view, LMI Group’s report is “filled with conjectures, bizarre assumptions, and ineffective info.”
ARTnews spoke to van Gogh scholar Michael Lobel, a professor at Hunter School and The Graduate Middle, CUNY and the writer of Van Gogh and the Finish of Nature. He mentioned the truth that his friends, together with van der Veen and Martin Pracher, an artwork appraiser and lecturer at Julius Maximilian College of Würzburg, “seem to have recognized a more likely writer of the portray [demonstrates that] experience just isn’t solely alive and effectively but in addition nonetheless extraordinarily priceless, regardless of any modern claims on the contrary.” (Neither Lobel nor Pracher have reviewed the portray in individual.)
Pracher wrote on X (previously Twitter) on February 2 that whereas researching the paintings Elimar, “I discovered a paining with a fairly related signature. Now both I’ve discovered my first van Gogh or a piece [by] the little-known Danish artist…Henning Elimar.”
Evaluation of Dye
LMI Group employed the companies of the New York–based mostly Scientific Evaluation of High quality Artwork (SAFA), whose shoppers, in accordance with its web site embody the Baltimore Museum of Artwork, the Carnegie Museum of Artwork, the MunchMuseet, the Barnes Basis, to investigate Elimar. The corporate offers scientific experience for authenticating and attributing effective artwork to museums, public sale homes, galleries, and collectors.
Within the report, SAFA mentioned that after “utilizing elemental, molecular, microscopic, and holistic imaging modalities [it] had recognized “the presence of pigments … and components which are in line with [the late 19th century].”
One among these pigments is PR50, which SAFA states was patented in 1905 because the barium salt of the dye. The corporate suggests, nonetheless, that different types of the dye might have existed earlier than 1905, which might due to this fact justify its detection in Elimar if it have been certainly painted 16 years earlier. ARTnews requested Steven Saverwyns, the pinnacle of the portray lab on the Brussels-based Royal Institute of Cultural Heritage, if van Gogh might have had entry to PR50.
“[SAFA] has no definitive proof that PR50 was truly produced between 1883 and 1905—solely that it was a chance,” he wrote in an electronic mail. “Additional analysis is required on the historical past of artificial natural pigments (that are derived from dyes by changing them into salts). Whereas their speculation could also be appropriate, I suppose the query stays open for debate except PR50 is conclusively recognized in a portray with a verifiable pre-1905 date.”
SAFA didn’t reply to a request for remark from ARTnews.
Jennifer Mass, SAFA’s president, posted on LinkedIn on January 31 that engaged on Elimar “was an interesting alternative to delve into the azo dye patent literature and make an thrilling new discovery.”
“Yet one more instance of how any such interdisciplinary analysis requires in depth collaboration,” she wrote.
Van der Veen instructed ARTnews that SAFA “appeared to do a great job with their evaluation, however the outcomes are under no circumstances conclusive to the case.”
“It’s unimaginable to single out a selected painter based mostly on pigment evaluation,” he mentioned.
A Discovery Worthy of Media Consideration?
Bendor Grosvenor, a number one British artwork historian who has beforehand found a number of misplaced Outdated Grasp work, has questioned why LMI Group’s report is producing a lot uncritical media consideration. Grosvenor wrote on Bluesky on February 1, “The thriller to me is why this story, and others prefer it, achieve a lot worldwide traction once they’re full non-starters.”
“I’m mystified as to why it has generated a lot media consideration,” Grosvenor instructed ARTnews by electronic mail.
Grosvenor has one more concept in regards to the portray. “It appears to be like like this portray is a duplicate by Henning Elimar of a portray by Michael Peter Ancher,” he mentioned.
LMI Group’s report states that the portray’s composition is “clearly based mostly upon a portray [Portrait of Niels Gaihede, ca. 1870s–80s] by the Danish artist Michael Ancher (1849–1927),” however attributes that copying to van Gogh. The report provides that the Submit-Impressionist had a historical past of copying works by historic artists, as was the norm for that day, and through his keep in Saint-Rémy he produced 33 “translations” of different artist’s work, together with by Delacroix, Millet, and Gauguin.
