it Was one of only two photos known of Vincent van Gogh, taken supposedly when the Dutch painter was 13 years old. But the image of a young man of serious face on sepia background has proven to be a snapshot of his younger brother, Theo, portrayed 15, as announced yesterday by the Van Gogh Museum of Amsterdam, in whose collection it was. The discovery will force them to correct many publications about the artist’s work, because the photo is included in catalogs and brochures and has appeared in multiple exhibitions. The painter that left so many self-portraits did not like or the picture or pose, and for posterity will only look of him, a snapshot taken when he was 19 years old.
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The old photo that you attached has regained its true face, as happened in 2011 with one of their supposed self-portraits. Painted two in 1887, with a felt hat of course, and with another straw. The model of the second was also his brother, as he knew by his ear, more round and less fleshy than that of the painter. The relationship was very close, and Theo, an art dealer of some success, he maintained a moral and economically to Vincent.
“I was surprised to know that the photograph is my great-grandfather, Theo, not Vincent. It is essential that the artistic legacy is passed down and preserved properly,” said Willem van Gogh, great-grandson and advisor to the museum. Vincent was not left to photograph because she thought it was a technical “dead”, compared with the painting, at least as he approached, with all your soul and at the expense of the health. That is why it is considered a treasure to the two photographs allegedly portraying the artist in his adolescence.
The image now discarded was exhibited for the first time in 1957, in a display organized by Mark Edo Tralbaut, a studious belgian of the work of the Dutch. In the corresponding catalogue, said that it was ‘ Vincent van Gogh to 1866”. No one doubted that the young man portrayed outside the then tormented creator. “Nobody thought about it because it looked a lot like the boy from the Gorabet other photo is preserved, which is of Vincent, at the age of 19,” according to Teio Meedendorp, principal investigator of the museum of the Dutch capital. But in 2014 a television program Dutch (Fotostudio de Jong, of radio station VPRO) compared with the aid of a software program of recognition of faces and the analysis left doubts that led to the museum to investigate on their own.
Although the authenticity of the image of Vincent at the age of 13 began to falter, it was business as usual, waiting for a scientific confirmation. In 2015, the belgian writer Yves Vasseur who was in charge of the exhibition Van Gogh in the Borinage, including in the activities of the belgian city of Mons as the European Capital of Culture, began to doubt also of the snapshot. “I discovered by chance that the photographer, Balduin Schwarz, moved to Brussels in 1870. Vincent should have more than 13 years for then [was 17]. Seeing the resemblance, and already thinking that the image was not of the painter, the most logical thing was to search among their next-of-kin. Thus, we come to Theo, who lived in Brussels in 1873. For letters, we also know that it had been portrayed in the house of Schwarz in February, when it should have been about 15 years,” explains le Vasseur.
The two brothers were very similar, with the blond hair reddish, but Theo was more streamlined and his eyes, of a very light blue. And that gaze, in that it had not been repaired well so far, was key to resolving the issue. That is why it has now released another image of his, at 32 years old, which shows that it is the same person. For the technical tests, commissioned by the museum, made high-resolution copies of all photos preserved. Then, the Institute of Informatics of the University of Amsterdam examined according to the standards of the Forensic Institute the National. The result was clear: the young man in the photo was actually Theo.
