BREDA, NETHERLANDS.- During its research into the story of how the Dutch work of Vincent van Gogh was distributed from Breda, the Breda Museum has discovered a small and early painting by Van Gogh. The work concerned is from The Hague Period. Van Gogh probably painted Houses near The Hague in 1882. What makes the discovery so special is that it comes from a collection of more than 250 works discovered in Breda in 1939; most of them signed ’Vincent’. Investigations have revealed that there is a good chance  that this collection comprises even more authentic work by Van Gogh. Part of the collection will be put on show in the Breda Museum from 22 November 2003 to 1 February 2004 at the exhibition "Vincent van Gogh: Lost and Found".   

The painting discovered can be compared with several well-known works from the Hague Period. Vincent drew and painted houses and farms around The Hague. Among the examples preserved are View of The Hague with the New Church, New Church and Old Houses in The Hague and Farms in Loosduinen. In its subject matter and style, the small painting Houses near The Hague fits into this list of examples. 

The work was painted on canvas that was later glued to a panel. Van Gogh worked with standard sizes, because he usually stretched the canvas on a board or frame with standard measurements. Houses near The Hague was painted on a canvas that is one quarter of the standard size, in other words: 16.5 x 24.5 cm. An x-ray of the work reveals that a larger canvas was cut up and the painting on this piece hides half of a study that was painted earlier. This previous study provides the third piece of evidence to attribute this work to Van Gogh. It is a painting of a Knitter Woman in Scheveningen. In this same period, Van Gogh worked on depicting houses around The Hague and women in Scheveningen. That is known from a double-sided watercolour with on one side a Bleach works and on the reverse a Woman from Scheveningen. The watercolour of the Scheveningen Woman may have served as a preliminary study for the painting underneath Houses near The Hague. In the studio of Anton Mauve, where he first came into contact with painting on canvas, Van Gogh made a watercolour of a Scheveningen woman knitting. A comparison with this work confirms the relationship between the subject of the hidden painting and Vincent van Gogh. 

The authenticity of the small painting strengthens the supposition that the collection from which it comes also contains more works by Van Gogh. These are works from his early period and from his youth. This collection of about 70 paintings and a few hundred works on paper was discovered in 1939 in Breda at the attic of the eccentric collector Barend den Houter. In the late 1940s, the collection was investigated in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and rejected in its entirety, without any convincing arguments being put forward. Since then, the collection has been regarded as comprised of forgeries. The investigation by the Breda Museum into the history of this collection has revealed that it includes works by several painters: contemporaries of Van Gogh, followers such as the mysterious painter Willemina Vincent and possible forgers. 

But the research also revealed a fact unknown until today.There was a contact between the collector Barend den Houter and the mother of Vincent van Gogh, who looked after most of his Dutch work while Vincent was in France. When Vincent’s mother moved in 1889 from Breda to Leiden, she rented a house at 100 Herengracht that was owned by Barend den Houter, the uncle of the collector. Barend den Houter Jr. then worked as a ship’s boy and was probably involved with this move. Vincent’s sister Lies declared in 1911 that, during this move, her mother had given several things away to "a boy who liked drawing". This statement may have been a reference to Barend den Houter. He could then have come into possession of an unknown number of drawings and paintings from Van Gogh’s earliest years. 

Investigation - In the last two years, a team of investigators, made up of Ron Dirven, Rebecca Nelemans, Hans Sprangers and Kees Wouters, was commissioned by the Breda Museum to investigate the distribution of the early work of Vincent van Gogh. The results of this investigation have been incorporated into a book that will appear to mark the exhibition "Vincent van Gogh: Lost and Found".  

When Vincent van Gogh left the Netherlands for good in 1885, his work remained behind in Nuenen. Soon after, his mother moved to Breda and had some of the work put into storage there. It was forgotten until in 1902, when a large number of works were sold in the street for next to nothing. In this way, the bulk of all Van Gogh’s Dutch oeuvre, from the Borinage, Brussels, Etten, The Hague, Drenthe and Nuenen, became scattered. Part was later found and recognised as authentic. But much was not found. As a result, the knowledge of Van Gogh’s early work is still limited and, for the same reason, works regularly turn up with a Breda provenance which are thought to be by Van Gogh. 

In this exhibition, the Breda Museum brings the story of the distribution of the Dutch oeuvre of Van Gogh back to life and also shows about 40 "Lost Finds". The authenticity of these works is controversial, but several certainly deserve further investigation. 

Lost Finds - Alongside Van Gogh’s Houses near The Hague, several other interesting finds have come to light. In early 2003, museum staff discovered a drawing by Van Gogh that had disappeared without trace since 1918. This drawing of a Fishermen with a Basket on his Back was auctioned at Sotheby’s in New York on 6 November and yielded $ 200,000. The folder in which this drawing was found included other drawings which were not known. Six of them are on show in the Breda Museum. 

In response to this, the Van Gogh Museum released the following statement:  

The museum welcomes the initiative of the Breda’s Museum. The exhibition and catalogue represent the first serious attempt to reconstruct the history of the so-called ’Breda crates’ (see below). 

In the spring of 2002, the Van Gogh Museum was asked by the Breda’s Museum to cooperate in the exhibition; given our own programme of research, however, this proved to be impossible. Following extensive consultation, it was decided that the project would be carried by Breda alone. 

The question of whether or not in the eyes of the Van Gogh Museum the newly attributed painting is actually an authentic Van Gogh cannot be answered fully at present: our experts have not seen the painting, nor conducted any form of research into it. Naturally, the Van Gogh Museum regards all new attributions with great interest; experience has shown, however, that caution is the order of the day. We will of course visit the exhibition in Breda and study the results of the curators’ research carefully. 

The Breda crates - In 1902 a number of authentic works from Vincent van Gogh’s Dutch period were discovered in crates in Breda. As it later appeared, these had once belonged to the artist’s mother. In the wake of these discoveries, and throughout the entire twentieth century, several hundred paintings and drawings came to be associated with these original finds. It was thus claimed that these, too, were authentic works by Van Gogh; however, such conclusions have also always been a matter of controversy. The exhibition ’Lost and Found’ in the Breda’s Museum represents a new attempt to shed light on this problem.