Vincent Van Gogh: Matters of Identity

The revelation of a misidentified face in a photograph--once thought to be Vincent, now known to be Theo van Gogh--leads to a novelesque story of revised art history

Full of surprising anecdotes, this book tells the story of the discovery in 2018 that one of only two known photographs of Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) is, in fact, of his brother, Theo. The detective-style narrative continues from there to Samuel Delsaut, who found two drawings attributed to Van Gogh in 1958. The archives of the Delsaut family revealed details casting doubt on the authenticity of these drawings, along with abundant correspondence between Samuel’s son and the son of Dr. Paul Gachet, who cared for Van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise. A real-life lesson in historical criticism, this book, beautifully illustrated with reproductions of Van Gogh’s work, has resonance with our contemporary predicament distinguishing information from rumor, journalism from propaganda.

Distributed for Mercatorfonds

Yves Vasseur is a writer based in Belgium and was general commissioner of Mons Cultural Capital of Europe 2015. Sjraar van Heugten is former head of collections at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, and an independent art historian. Marije Vellekoop is head of collections, research, and presentation at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.