โRed Vineyards in Arlesโ โ Vincent van Gogh
Price: $3,750,000
Van Gogh is often said to have sold just one painting in his lifetime: this one. The story is simplified, but essentially true.
It sold for 400 francs at a Brussels exhibition in March 1890, four months before his death. The buyer, Belgian artist and collector Anna Boch, belonged to the Les XX group. Her brother Eugรจne was Van Goghโs friend, and he painted his portrait in Arles in autumn 1888.
In a letter to his brother Theo, Van Gogh sheepishly admitted the Bochs had paid the full price, though he should have offered them a friends-and-family discount.
Anna kept the painting until 1907, when Moscow collector and textile magnate Ivan Morozov bought it for 30,000 francsโa sign of Van Goghโs rising posthumous reputation. The Morozov collection was nationalized in 1918; in 1948, the painting went to Moscowโs Pushkin Museum, where it remains.
Visuverse
Price: $3,750,000
Van Gogh is often said to have sold just one painting in his lifetime: this one. The story is simplified, but essentially true.
It sold for 400 francs at a Brussels exhibition in March 1890, four months before his death. The buyer, Belgian artist and collector Anna Boch, belonged to the Les XX group. Her brother Eugรจne was Van Goghโs friend, and he painted his portrait in Arles in autumn 1888.
In a letter to his brother Theo, Van Gogh sheepishly admitted the Bochs had paid the full price, though he should have offered them a friends-and-family discount.
Anna kept the painting until 1907, when Moscow collector and textile magnate Ivan Morozov bought it for 30,000 francsโa sign of Van Goghโs rising posthumous reputation. The Morozov collection was nationalized in 1918; in 1948, the painting went to Moscowโs Pushkin Museum, where it remains.
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Europe Bridge โ Gustave Caillebotte
Price: $160,000
Caillebotte spent hours sketching this bridge, then arranged and reworked the figures in his studio to find the right viewpoint. In a photograph, a man in a hat stands almost exactly as he does in the painting.
The bridge crosses the tracks at Saint-Lazare station, where six avenues named for European capitals met. To 19th-century Parisians, it symbolized the industrial age.
The foreground figures remain debated. The top-hatted man may be Caillebotte, with acquaintance Anne-Marie Hagen beside him. A worker leans on the railing, gazing toward the station. Though they share a bridge, the wealthy flรขneur and worker seem to inhabit different worlds.
Shown at the 1877 Impressionist exhibition when Caillebotte was 28, the painting reflects his dual role as artist and leading patron. His support sustained fellow Impressionists, and his collection later helped form Franceโs national Impressionist collection.
Visuverse
Price: $160,000
Caillebotte spent hours sketching this bridge, then arranged and reworked the figures in his studio to find the right viewpoint. In a photograph, a man in a hat stands almost exactly as he does in the painting.
The bridge crosses the tracks at Saint-Lazare station, where six avenues named for European capitals met. To 19th-century Parisians, it symbolized the industrial age.
The foreground figures remain debated. The top-hatted man may be Caillebotte, with acquaintance Anne-Marie Hagen beside him. A worker leans on the railing, gazing toward the station. Though they share a bridge, the wealthy flรขneur and worker seem to inhabit different worlds.
Shown at the 1877 Impressionist exhibition when Caillebotte was 28, the painting reflects his dual role as artist and leading patron. His support sustained fellow Impressionists, and his collection later helped form Franceโs national Impressionist collection.
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The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist โ Caravaggio
The only painting Caravaggio signed, it bears the words โbrother Michelangeloโ in the blood from the saintโs severed throat. At the time, he was a fugitive murderer: after killing a man in a Rome street brawl, he was sentenced to death and fled to Malta.
The Knights of St John welcomed him and made him a knight, a distinction that might help secure a papal pardon. He painted this enormous altarpiece for Vallettaโs cathedral, the largest canvas of his career. But after a fight with a senior knight, he was imprisoned, escaped Malta, and in December 1608 was expelled from the order as a โrotten and foulโ former brother. The ceremony took place before this very painting.
Caravaggio never received a pardon. Two years later, he died under mysterious circumstances, never returning to Rome.
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The only painting Caravaggio signed, it bears the words โbrother Michelangeloโ in the blood from the saintโs severed throat. At the time, he was a fugitive murderer: after killing a man in a Rome street brawl, he was sentenced to death and fled to Malta.
The Knights of St John welcomed him and made him a knight, a distinction that might help secure a papal pardon. He painted this enormous altarpiece for Vallettaโs cathedral, the largest canvas of his career. But after a fight with a senior knight, he was imprisoned, escaped Malta, and in December 1608 was expelled from the order as a โrotten and foulโ former brother. The ceremony took place before this very painting.
Caravaggio never received a pardon. Two years later, he died under mysterious circumstances, never returning to Rome.
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โFish in Summer and Autumnโ โ Maruyama ลkyo
These two scrolls trace the ayu fish through the Buddhist and natural cycle of life. In the first, eight young sweetfish swim upstream past a moss-covered rock and spring azaleas. In the second, crimson maple leaves mark the shift from spring and summer: three mature ayu head downstream toward the sea, where a new cycle begins.
An almost revolutionary 18th-century Japanese artist, ลkyo combined Chinese and Japanese techniques with Western linear perspective, which he encountered as a teenager while working at a toy shop selling European stereoscopes. His distinctive style was intensely naturalistic, almost scientific. Though some artists criticized him for imitating nature too literally, the public embraced his work. He became one of his eraโs most successful artists, and his Kyoto studio reportedly trained around a thousand students.
The left scroll is signed and dated 1785, at the height of ลkyoโs career.
Visuverse
These two scrolls trace the ayu fish through the Buddhist and natural cycle of life. In the first, eight young sweetfish swim upstream past a moss-covered rock and spring azaleas. In the second, crimson maple leaves mark the shift from spring and summer: three mature ayu head downstream toward the sea, where a new cycle begins.
An almost revolutionary 18th-century Japanese artist, ลkyo combined Chinese and Japanese techniques with Western linear perspective, which he encountered as a teenager while working at a toy shop selling European stereoscopes. His distinctive style was intensely naturalistic, almost scientific. Though some artists criticized him for imitating nature too literally, the public embraced his work. He became one of his eraโs most successful artists, and his Kyoto studio reportedly trained around a thousand students.
The left scroll is signed and dated 1785, at the height of ลkyoโs career.
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