In mid-January 1889, three weeks after mutilating his ear, Van Gogh painted two astonishing self-portraits, depicting himself with a outstanding bandage, masking his mutilated ear. The well-known one is in London’s Courtauld Gallery (beneath left).
The opposite, in a personal assortment (beneath proper), has solely sometimes been displayed on the Kunsthaus Zurich. The final time it was lent to an exhibition exterior Switzerland was in 1990. This weblog submit focuses primarily on this second, lesser-known portray, Self-portrait with bandaged Ear and Pipe, which has an orange-red background and through which the artist is smoking.
Van Gogh’s Self-portrait with bandaged Ear (Courtauld Gallery, London) and Self-portrait with bandaged Ear and Pipe (non-public assortment, each January 1889)
Van Gogh lower off most of considered one of his ears in Arles on the night of 23 December 1888, after a row together with his housemate, Paul Gauguin. Though the wound was very critical, Van Gogh appeared to make a fast restoration and was launched from hospital on 7 January 1889.
Vincent rapidly acquired again to portray, writing to his brother Theo ten days later: “I’ve began work once more and I have already got 3 research achieved within the studio”. Two of the work had been the pair of self-portraits, together with a nonetheless life. All are tremendous works, proof that the artist had misplaced none of his expertise.
Probably the most hanging compositional factor of Self-portrait with bandaged Ear and Pipe is the highly effective background—orange and crimson. The division of the colors is degree with the artist’s eyes, giving an added emphasis to his direct gaze. With the artist’s coat in inexperienced, the complementary color to crimson, the image sings out.
One other distinguishing characteristic within the self-portrait is the artist’s beloved pipe, which he felt helped him calm down. The swirling smoke enlivens the colourful image. Three months after finishing the portray Vincent wittily quoted Charles Dickens in a letter to his sister Wil: “Every single day I take the treatment that the incomparable Dickens prescribes towards suicide. It consists of a glass of wine, a bit of bread and cheese and a pipe of tobacco.”
Van Gogh is clean-shaven (or virtually so), though in practically all of his 34 different painted self-portraits he sports activities a beard and moustache. Presumably he had been shaved when he was handled in hospital and his facial hair had not but grown again.
Each self-portraits had been achieved inside a day or two of one another. The truth that the artist’s beard and moustache appear barely shorter within the privately owned one means that it might have been achieved simply earlier than the one within the Courtauld.
It’s startling that Van Gogh determined to color two self-portraits when he was in such a bodily susceptible state. He needn’t have painted self-portraits and will have achieved nonetheless lifes. If he wished to do self-portraits, he may have simply depicted his head from the opposite aspect, turned away from the mutilated ear. As an alternative, he intentionally positioned himself to show his very outstanding bandage. The 2 self-portraits clearly make an announcement.
Depicting the bandage could have been Van Gogh’s courageous try to return to phrases with what had occurred—acknowledging his harm. He discovered it very troublesome to write down concerning the self-mutilation in his letters, however maybe he may try to cope with it by way of his artwork.
However what would these round him have thought concerning the two self-portraits? In Arles, the work would in all probability have been seen by his closest companion, the postman Joseph Roulin, and the artist’s physician good friend, Félix Rey. Disturbing as they had been, the 2 works represented highly effective proof to persuade them that Van Gogh had misplaced none of his creative creativity. On the time he could have wished to specific his dedication to beat the traumatic expertise.
One of many self-portraits, the Courtauld one, was in all probability despatched in a consignment of work to Theo in Might 1889. One can solely think about how Theo will need to have felt when he opened the crate, to see such an express depiction of his injured brother. Sending this image to his brother in Paris may additionally have partly represented a cry for assist.
By the spring, Van Gogh’s issues had turn into totally obvious. After his temporary restoration in mid-January 1889, his psychological situation deteriorated and he was readmitted to hospital on the finish of that month. He was then out and in of hospital for the subsequent few months and in Might he felt he had no various however to enter the psychological asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. He stayed there for a 12 months, earlier than shifting to Auvers-sur-Oise, the place he died from suicide on 29 July 1890.
The primary illustration
Three years after Van Gogh’s demise, Self-portrait with bandaged Ear and Pipe was chosen to signify the artist in an exhibition with an bold title: Les Portraits du Prochain siècle (Portraits of the Subsequent Century). This presentation of portraits of avant-garde artists and writers was held in Paris on the gallery Le Barc de Boutteville in July 1893.
It was an honour for Van Gogh to be included, since he was not but well-known. Much more shocking was the selection of portray to signify him, since many exhibition-goers wouldn’t have identified of the ear mutilation and the aim of the bandage (and of those that did know, some may need discovered the image disturbing).
The exhibition obtained scant press consideration, but it surely was described in a prolonged article within the Revue Encyclopédique. The author, poet Paul-Napoléon Roinard, expressed his shock on seeing the Van Gogh self-portrait: “Oh! The attractive and wild concord of this primitive barbarism of artwork: the juxtaposition of colors.” Roinard was presumably referring to the orange-red background.
Copy of Van Gogh’s Self-portrait with bandaged Ear and Pipe
Revue Encyclopédique (15 November 1893)
This evaluate additionally included {a photograph} of the self-portrait. It was the primary time that a picture of considered one of Van Gogh’s work had been reproduced within the press, an early signal of his imminent fame.
The early black-and-white {photograph} affords an uncommon alternative to see how the situation of the portray could have modified. In 1893 the sunshine streaks on the coat appear to have been extra pronounced, the again of the hat seems lighter and the billowing smoke has larger emphasis. The division of the orange-red background is imperceptible within the black-and-white copy. Nonetheless, a few of these variations could have been as a result of limitations of early pictures.
By 1893 the portray had been acquired by the artist Emile Schuffenecker, a really eager collector of Van Gogh’s work. Schuffenecker as soon as drew a colored copy of the self-portrait, proof of his admiration for his fellow painter. Acquired by the Van Gogh Museum in 1974, the copy has solely been displayed as soon as, in 2016, and is little identified.
Van Gogh’s Self-portrait with bandaged Ear and Pipe: the 1893 {photograph} and the portray at the moment
Emile Schuffenecker’s chalk copy (1892-1900) of Van Gogh’s Self-portrait with bandaged Ear and Pipe
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Basis)
Looted by the Nazis
By the Thirties Self-portrait with bandaged Ear and Pipe was owned by the Paris vendor Paul Rosenberg, who was of Jewish origins. After the German occupation of France in 1940 the portray was hidden in a financial institution vault in Libourne, close to Bordeaux, for safekeeping.
The self-portrait was seized the next 12 months by a Nazi process drive and moved to Paris, the place it was acquired by Hermann Göring, Hitler’s deputy. In 1942 the portray was despatched to a Swiss lawyer performing on behalf of Göring’s pursuits.
German card recording the arrival of the looted Van Gogh self-portrait within the Jeu de Paume depot, Paris, 22 March 1944
Database of Artwork Objects on the Jeu de Paume
Declassified UK authorities papers document that the Van Gogh was subsequently “smuggled into Switzerland by diplomatic bag”, by the German authorities. The self-portrait was recovered in Zurich in 1945 and three years later it was restituted to Rosenberg. It’s subsequently not topic to any potential restitution claims.
In 1949 the self-portrait was purchased by the Chicago steel-company proprietor and collector Leigh Block and his spouse Mary. They hung it above the fireside within the lounge of their luxurious condominium.
Block offered the Van Gogh within the early Nineteen Seventies and it went to the Greek transport tycoon Stavros Niarchos, who lived partly in Switzerland. Martin Summers, the London vendor who helped prepare the sale, recalled a meal with Niarchos at which the portray was supplied at “a stiff worth”, between $2m and $3m. Summer season added that Niarchos “by no means mentioned the portray at lunch, however on leaving casually mentioned: ‘I’ll take it.’”
Niarchos is alleged to have had the Van Gogh flown by helicopter to his chalet in St Moritz for his common winter visits. He died in 1996. The portray is now often described as in an unnamed non-public assortment, however it’s probably nonetheless with the heirs of Niarchos, in all probability together with his eldest son Philip.
There are solely 4 Van Gogh self-portraits nonetheless in non-public fingers and theirs is by far an important. If the portray comes onto the market, it will virtually actually fetch a document worth for a Van Gogh, beating Orchard with Cypresses (April 1888), which offered for $117m in 2022. The Niarchos household ended up with a cut price.
