{"id":373660,"date":"2026-04-10T23:16:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T23:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/373660\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T23:16:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T23:16:16","slug":"a-dutch-museum-has-just-put-its-fake-van-gogh-on-show-the-art-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/373660\/","title":{"rendered":"A Dutch museum has just put its fake Van Gogh on show – The Art Newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

Museums normally hide any fakes deep in their vaults, but the Kr\u00f6ller-M\u00fcller Museum in Otterlo has just put their false Van Gogh, Seascape at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer<\/a> (1925-27), on display. This intriguing presentation, on until 21 June, coincides with a Dutch-language podcast<\/a> recounting how its museum founder Helene Kr\u00f6ller-M\u00fcller acquired what turned out to be a forgery.<\/p>\n

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The display of the fake Van Gogh (until 21 June)<\/p>\n

Kr\u00f6ller-M\u00fcller Museum, Otterlo<\/p>\n

Kr\u00f6ller-M\u00fcller, the greatest early 20th-century collector of Van Gogh\u2019s work, bought the painting Seascape at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in December 1928, on the recommendation of her art advisor H.P. Bremmer. It came, via a gallery in The Hague, from the Berlin dealer Otto Wacker, apparently for the equivalent of $18,000.<\/p>\n

The painting was said to have been done during Van Gogh\u2019s short visit to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, a fishing village in the Camargue just 40 kilometres south of Arles, where he was then living.<\/p>\n

This sojourn in the first week of June 1888 was the only time that the artist saw the Mediterranean, and it made a deep impression on him. Vincent wrote about the sea, telling his brother Theo that it has \u201ca colour like mackerel\u201d. Its surface was constantly changing: \u201cYou don\u2019t always know if it\u2019s green or purple \u2014 you don\u2019t always know if it\u2019s blue \u2014 because a second later, its changing reflection has taken on a pink or grey hue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Right from the start of Kr\u00f6ller-M\u00fcller\u2019s acquisition, several art historians and critics began to express doubts about the authenticity of the painting. In January 1930, Seascape at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer was downgraded by Jacob-Baart de la Faille, author of the catalogue raisonn\u00e9 of Van Gogh\u2019s work. He wrote: \u201cIt is a very beautiful work, but not by Van Gogh.\u201d There followed several years of intense debate, with De la Faille at one point changing his mind.<\/p>\n

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Van Gogh\u2019s La Mer \u00e0 Saintes-Maries (June 1888)<\/p>\n

Private collection, reproduced in Emile Bernard, Lettres de Vincent van Gogh (Paris, 1911), p. xlix<\/p>\n

It became increasingly clear that the forged painting was made after an authentic Van Gogh drawing, which had been been published in 1911 by the artist Emile Bernard and was then on display at Wacker\u2019s gallery in 1927. In 1932, Wacker was ultimately brought to trial and found guilty of fraud for the sale of a large group of fake Van Goghs.<\/p>\n

The Kr\u00f6ller-M\u00fcller Museum finally took Seascape at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer off display in 1947. Apart from loans to two Dutch exhibitions in 1947-49, a travelling show on fakes in four venues in England in 1986-87, and the museum\u2019s 2006 presentation on Bremmer, it has otherwise always remained in storage.<\/p>\n

The museum now believes that the picture was painted by Wacker\u2019s younger brother, Leonhard. Renske Cohen Tervaert, the museum\u2019s curator, points out that: \u201cNeither the use of colour nor the short brushstrokes match the other works that Van Gogh painted on his visit to the Mediterranean. The style of the fake is superficially slightly closer to his work of a year later, when he was living in the asylum near Saint-R\u00e9my-de-Provence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Van Gogh’s style in June 1888, when he visited the fishing port, can be seen in the authentic painting Seascape near Les Sainte-Maries-de-la-Mer<\/a>, now at Amsterdam\u2019s Van Gogh Museum. A few grains of sand embedded in the paint confirm that this work was painted on the beach.<\/p>\n

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Van Gogh\u2019s Seascape near Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (June 1888)<\/p>\n

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)<\/p>\n

Although the Wacker seascape is a fake, its frame has an authentic value. In 1910, Kr\u00f6ller-M\u00fcller began to commission distinctive wooden frames with slightly raised square corners for her Van Gogh paintings. These were designed by the noted Dutch interior decorator Jacob van den Bosch in an early Art Deco style.<\/p>\n

Virtually all the historic Van den Bosch frames were discarded in the 1950s, but, because the seascape had by then been downgraded, it was kept in store in its earlier frame. In 2003 the museum decided to reframe all of its Van Gogh paintings with replica Van den Bosch frames, using the forged seascape\u2019s surviving frame as a template.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Seascape at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in its early Van den Bosch frame<\/p>\n

Kr\u00f6ller-M\u00fcller Museum, Otterlo<\/p>\n

Despite the purchase of Seascape at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, Kr\u00f6ller-M\u00fcller was remarkably successful in her Van Gogh acquisitions. Her museum<\/a> holds the second largest Van Gogh collection in the world, with 88 paintings and 182 works on paper.<\/p>\n

Martin Bailey is a leading Van Gogh specialist and special correspondent for The Art Newspaper. He has curated exhibitions at the Barbican Art Gallery, Compton Verney\/National Gallery of Scotland and Tate Britain.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Martin Bailey\u2019s recent Van Gogh books<\/p>\n

Martin has written a number of bestselling books on Van Gogh\u2019s years in France: The Sunflowers Are Mine: The Story of Van Gogh’s Masterpiece (Frances Lincoln 2013, UK<\/a> and US<\/a>), Studio of the South: Van Gogh in Provence (Frances Lincoln 2016, UK<\/a> and US<\/a>), Starry Night: Van Gogh at the Asylum (White Lion Publishing 2018, UK<\/a> and US<\/a>) and Van Gogh\u2019s Finale: Auvers and the Artist\u2019s Rise to Fame (Frances Lincoln 2021, UK<\/a> and US<\/a>). The Sunflowers are Mine (2024, UK<\/a> and US<\/a>) and Van Gogh\u2019s Finale (2024, UK<\/a> and US<\/a>) are also now available in a more compact paperback format.<\/p>\n

His other recent books include Living with Vincent van Gogh: The Homes & Landscapes that shaped the Artist (White Lion Publishing 2019, UK<\/a> and US<\/a>), which provides an overview of the artist\u2019s life. The Illustrated Provence Letters of Van Gogh has been reissued (Batsford 2021, UK<\/a> and US<\/a>). My Friend Van Gogh\/Emile Bernard provides the first English translation of Bernard\u2019s writings on Van Gogh (David Zwirner Books 2023, UK<\/a>and US<\/a>).<\/p>\n

To contact Martin Bailey, please email vangogh@theartnewspaper.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Please note that he does not undertake authentications.<\/p>\n

Explore all of Martin\u2019s adventures with Van Gogh here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Museums normally hide any fakes deep in their vaults, but the Kr\u00f6ller-M\u00fcller Museum in Otterlo has just put…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[20428,442,498,499,500,501,156,194980,194981,111,139,69,46309],"class_list":{"0":"post-373660","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-adventures-with-van-gogh","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-artsanddesign","12":"tag-artsdesign","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-fakes-and-forgeries","16":"tag-kroller-muller-museum","17":"tag-new-zealand","18":"tag-newzealand","19":"tag-nz","20":"tag-vincent-van-gogh"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}