A newly authenticated Van Gogh has gone on display 35 years after a discredited art collector bought it in Paris, convinced it was painted by the famed Dutch master but never able to prove it.
Le Blute-Fin Mill was painted in 1886, according to Louis Van Tilborgh, curator of research at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
It was bought in 1975 by Dirk Hannema, who was known as a brilliant museum curator but a fool when buying for his own collection. When he died in 1984 he claimed to have seven Vermeers, several Van Goghs and a few Rembrandts.
Reclaimed masterpiece: Le Blute-Fin Mill is the first Van Gogh painting to be authenticated since 1995
Artist: Vincent Van Gogh painted the lost masterpiece in Paris in 1886
Mr Van Tilborgh said it was painted in 1886 when the artist was living in Paris. He said its large human figures are unusual for a Van Gogh landscape but it has his typically bright colours.
The canvas bore the stamp of an art store he was known to frequent, and used pigments that were common in other works.
The painting 'adds to his oeuvre', the curator said. 'You can link it to certain works of Van Gogh in that period, but not that many of them.'
It is the first Van Gogh to be authenticated since 1995 and the sixth to be added to the confirmed list of the artist's paintings since the latest edition of the standard catalog was published in 1970.
Van Gogh painted about 900 works in his brief career. Afflicted by mental illness, he died of a self-inflicted wound in 1890 at age 37.
On show: Ralph Keuning, director of the Museum de Fundatie in Zwolle, unveiled the painting to the public yesterday
Art curator: Dirk Hannema's claims the painting is a Van Gogh have finally been vindicated, 25 years after his death
He touted the painting with 'absolute certainty' as a Van Gogh, but no one was listening. He had been discredited since he bought a Vermeer in 1937 that later was shown to be a forgery.
'He was the laughing stock of the art world,' van Tilborgh said. 'His tragedy was that he was always thinking in terms of the big names.'
Mr Hennema displayed the picture in his own house until he died in 1984, when it disappeared in the Museum de Fundatie depot, only to resurface shortly in 1993 and in 2007.
The museum had sought once before, in 1993, to have experts authenticate Le Blute-Fin Mill to prepare for an exhibition.
But the Amsterdam experts had no time, and the painting went on display as a work that Mr Hannema pronounced as a Van Gogh.
The art collector also claimed he owned three more Van Gogh paintings, but no prove has been found to support that.
