A large painting by Virginie Demont-Breton acquired by the Van Gogh Museum

23/3/26 - Acquisition - Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum - Hanging on the stand of Galerie 19 C at TEFAF Maastricht until Thursday evening, an impressive painting by Virginie Demont-Breton (ill. 1) was thus offered as a preview to the fair’s visitors, who will be able to see it on the walls of the Van Gogh Museum. The Amsterdam institution indeed announced its acquisition on Friday, March 13, while the TEFAF opening was in full swing. The first painting by the French artist to join Dutch public collections, Man at Sea was acquired thanks to the support of the VriendenLoterij. Little known to the general public today, so much so that her name is not even mentioned in certain articles, the painter was nevertheless famous in her time and led a brilliant career, recognized with various awards. She was the second female painter (after Rosa Bonheur) to be decorated with the Legion of Honour and won several medals at the Salon. While she debuted there as early as 1880, her talent had already emerged before, as evidenced by the fine drawing purchased by the Musée d’Orsay in 2021 from Ambroise Duchemin (see the news item of 13/7/21).

The work selected by the Van Gogh Museum at TEFAF is far more ambitious, as it is a fairly monumental format, which explains its price — announced between €500,000 and €1,000,000 — and justifies the institution’s interest, which had been seeking it for quite some time. Man at Sea had indeed crossed the Atlantic immediately after the closure of the 1889 Salon, as the North American collector Thomas Barlow Walker had spotted it at the opening and then acquired it for 1,500 francs: the work (ill. 2) is recognizable as exhibited in the private museum (open to the public) of his Minneapolis mansion. Acclaimed by the Parisian critics in 1889,…