Excitement in the art world is building over a rare viewing and upcoming auction of a Vincent van Gogh painting that has not been on public display for more than 60 years. Hundreds of people lined up in Hong Kong this week to catch a fleeting glimpse of Châtaigniers en fleurs, or Chestnut Trees in Blossom, in advance of its auction next month in New York, ’ Joyce Zhou reports. It is expected to sell for around $180 million—a potential record for a van Gogh work at auction.
Orchard with Cypresses, painted in 1888, currently holds the record for the most expensive van Gogh painting sold at public auction. It sold for $117 million in 2022. Painted in May 1890, the artwork is coveted not only for its aesthetic beauty but for the late chapter of van Gogh’s tumultuous life when it was created.
After spending a year in a psychiatric asylum following a mental health crisis during which he cut off his ear, the painter traveled to the village of Auvers-sur-Oise, near Paris. There, van Gogh became inspired by what he described as “beautiful greenery in abundance” and felt that “the desire to work will devour me and make me insensible to everything else and in a good mood,” according to a statement from Sotheby’s, the auction house hosting the painting’s sale. Van Gogh rented a small attic room above a café for three and a half francs per night and made daily trips into the countryside to paint.
He also frequently visited Paul Gachet, a local doctor and art collector who encouraged him to continue painting. Van Gogh took heed of Gachet’s advice and painted prolifically again. But just two months into van Gogh’s stay in Auvers-sur-Oise, the painter shot himself in the chest.
He succumbed to his injury two days later on July 29, 1890, at just 37 years-old. It was later owned by Theo’s widow, then the couple’s son, before leaving the family. Its 20th-century provenance is storied.
Chestnut Trees in Blossom was acquired by the famed literary magnate Samuel Fischer, whose publishing house was the first to publish Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse. George “Buddy” Gard de Sylva, co-founder of Capitol Records, later owned the painting, as did the philanthropist and collector Harriet Harris-Jonas, whose private collection was so renowned that the Metropolitan Museum of Art led tours through her Manhattan apartment. Since 1975, the painting has been owned by the late Carlos Pedro Blaquier and Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier, Argentine art collectors and patrons.
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