Rare Van Gogh, Flinck Artworks on Display in Amsterdam

Art lovers are in for a rare treat as four forgotten works by Dutch masters Vincent van Gogh and 17th-century painter Govert Flinck have gone on display, after gathering dust for more than 100 years.

The works include a never-before-seen Van Gogh drawing, which had been in private hands until now.

Called ‘The Hill of Montmartre with Quarries’, Van Gogh’s monochrome artwork dates from 1886 when he was living in Antwerp and Paris, where he worked at the studio of leading French historical painter Fernand Cormon, Artdaily reported.

The sketch, together with a second drawing ‘The Hill of Montmartre’, were unveiled on January 16 at an exhibition at the Singer Laren Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Meanwhile, two previously forgotten works by Rembrandt’s student Govert Flinck (1615-1660) were also revealed to the public at the museum for the first time since disappearing around 1895.

The two portraits were only unearthed after their owner visited an exhibition of Flinck’s work at the Amsterdam Museum.

For many years ‘Montmartre with Quarries’ sat unnoticed in a private collection until it was brought to the Van Gogh Museum in 2013 for authentication, Teio Meedendorp, senior researcher for the Amsterdam-based Van Gogh Museum explained.

“After it came in we verified that it was indeed a Van Gogh -- but we were intrigued by the question of its origins.”

 Identical Stationery

The Van Gogh Museum’s art sleuths discovered the sketch originally belonged to Johanna Van Gogh-Bonger, the wife of Vincent’s brother Theo. It had been sold into a private collection in 1917.

The sketch also gave the museum an opportunity to authenticate a second work in its possession, called ‘The Hill at Montmartre’.

The type of stationery used in both sketches is identical and “nicely illustrates how he (Vincent) was still searching for his own style in the winter and spring of 1886,” the Singer Laren Museum said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the Flincks were uncovered after the anonymous owner contacted the museum to offer the portraits for its current exhibition of the 17th-century master, who studied under Rembrandt but later developed his own style.

Believed to be portraits of Zeeland province representative Johan de Mauregenault and his wife Petronella van Panhuysm, they were last described in an 1895 auction catalogue. Since then the paintings disappeared into thin air until now.