A portrait of a woman painted by Vincent van Gogh, who can also be recognized in his famous The Potato Eaters from 1885, was sold in London on Tuesday for 4,842,000 British pounds (5.5 million euros). Auction house Christie’s expected the painting, made in the early spring of the same year, to fetch between 1 and 2 million British pounds.
It is not often that a genuine Van Gogh is offered for sale. And certainly not for a relatively affordable amount. Van Gogh painted the work, measuring more than 41 by almost 33 centimetres Head of a woman in Nuenen in Brabant, where he immortalized various peasant people. The woman in question is Gordina de Groot (also known as Sien or Dien). She wears a white cap, as women often did back then.
Around 1884, the farmer’s daughter regularly posed for Vincent van Gogh when he lived in Nuenen. He captured her no fewer than 24 times, including as one of the potato eaters in the iconic painting of the same name that Van Gogh made in Nuenen.
In the circle of the artist and sitter, the only one whose name he ever wrote down, evil tongues claimed that Van Gogh might be the father of Gordina’s child. The painter has always vehemently denied this. The English auction house does point to the ‘intimacy’ that the oil painting exudes. DNA testing of three great-grandchildren recently showed that the DNA did not match.
The painting was until now in a Swiss private collection. The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has a similar portrait, but Gordina wears earrings. It is not known who will get hold of the painting.
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