Elimar an original piece by van Gogh found in a garage sale in minnesota. Photo Credit LMI Group press release
A bargain buy at an American garage sale might just have made someone incredibly wealthy and brought to light a previously unknown Van Gogh work.
According to art-research firm LMI Group International, their analysis has identified the work as a Van Gogh original. The piece was bought by an antique collector in 2016. It was probably made in 1889 whilst Van Gogh was in the Saint-Paul Sanatorium in France, where he spent a portion of time having voluntarily admitted himself after cutting off part of his left ear.
Elimar painting has same distinctive finish used by Van Gogh
The work is called Elimar, was painted with oil on canvas and shows a net being fixed by a fisherman smoking a pipe. The work is apparently inspired by Michael Ancher a Danish artist, the LMI group have said Van Gogh often made versions of other artists paintings.
The LMI Group have taken four years to analyse and identify the new work as being an original Van Gogh, the company analysed canvas weaves, pigments and the painting composition. The painting was found to have the same egg-white finish that Van Gogh regularly used to protect his works.
They also compared his writing from other signatures on works to that of the signature found on Elimar and found sufficient similarities. They also found DNA evidence in the form of a hair embedded in the canvas, but it was too degraded to be successfully matched, however they did find that it came from a human male.
Experts believe 300 Van Gogh paintings may have been ‘lost’
Lawrence M. Shindell, the LMI Groups chairman said “LMI Group’s data-based approach to verifying authorship of this painting represents a new standard of confidence for bringing to light unknown or forgotten works by important artists.”
For full authentication the Elimar has to be accredited to Van Gogh by the Amsterdam based Van Gogh Museum. In 2018 the museum refused to attribute the work to Van Gogh, but since then the LMI Group have analysed the painting, they say they are prepared to bring evidence to the table.
Although it might seem odd that a painting from Van Gogh has found its way to garage sale in Minnesota, the LMI group say that “In his lifetime, Van Gogh lost many works by giving them away to friends or being neglectful,” and continued by saying “It is believed that nearly 300 paintings may have been lost, many during Van Gogh’s time at Saint-Rémy.”
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