This portrait of two half - naked grappler was paint by Vincent Van Gogh when he was an art student in Antwerp . It ’s been hiding in unmistakable sight for over 125 years , and its discovery also confirm another gainsay Van Gogh picture .
These two wrestlers were paint around 1885 , when Van Gogh was a 32 - yr - old art pupil seem to improve his already colossal but unrecognized acquisition . He mentions them in a letter to his brother Theo as an example of what his brother ’s money was paying for . The job is that the painting then disappeared from account , and it ’s only now that we have finally rediscover it .
The other side of this historical mystery story is the house painting on the left field , which picture a far more typically Van Gogh submit : some efflorescence . The painting , address Still Life with Meadow Flowers and Roses was obtained by the Dutch museum Kröller - Müller Museum in 1974 , and the big question since then has been whether this is really a Van Gogh . The size of the canvas and the gaudy face of the flowers do n’t look much like Van Gogh , which is why the museum declared the picture to be anonymous in 2003 .
Now , thanks to ultraviolet and X - ray analyses by DESY , the negatron synchrotron laboratory in Hamburg , we get it on the truth : the two matman were shroud under Still Life with Meadow Flowers and Roses all along . Van Gogh painted the still - life sentence over the wrestlers without even get to to obscure the original piece of work . As New Scientist explains , this disclose an all - new Van Gogh and confirms another one all in one savage slide :
The fact that the wrestlers were a homework naming explains the floral picture ’s oddities : the canvass was unusually expectant because that was the school ’s standard , and the flowers in the foreground were so pretentious because they had to cover an entire half - naked boy . The new synchrotron examination expose more clinching details . The grappler were wear pant , which was characteristic of the honorary society at Antwerp ( other academies had pupil do all au naturel figure studies ) . The radiation also designate that the pigment corresponded with Van Gogh ’s at the time , and revealed his distinctive brush chance event .
ViaNew Scientist . picture via Kröller - Müller Museum .
HistoryScienceUltravioletVincent van Gogh
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