One of Vincent van Gogh's first paintings was sold for several million euros at an art fair in the Netherlands, its former owner and Dutch media announced on Sunday March 10. The painting Head of a Peasant Girl with a White Headdress was offered for 4.5 million euros at TEFAF (The European Fine Art Fair), in Maastricht, in the south of the country.
"It was sold to a museum outside the European Union," said Bill Rau, president of M.S. Galerie Rau, one of the largest galleries in the United States, based in New Orleans, which had put the painting up for sale. “We cannot talk about the price,” Mr. Rau said in an email to Agence France-Presse.
According to Dutch national news agency ANP, the purchase price “was equal to the initial sale price.” The painting “will be accessible to the public,” says the ANP, which does not give the name of the museum.
Des Kandinsky, Manet, Rubens et Rodin a wait
Van Gogh created this painting while living with his parents in the town of Nuenen in the south of the Netherlands. In 1885, he painted his famous painting The Potato Eaters at the same location.
Visitors to TEFAF will be able to marvel at paintings, sculptures and jewelry until Thursday. Manet, Rubens and Rodin are among the many pieces on display, all of which will be on sale, but the undeniable stars of the fair are Head of a Peasant Girl with a White Headdress, by Van Gogh, and Murnau mit Kirche II, by Kandinsky.
Painted in 1910, Kandinsky's masterpiece was sold last year by Sotheby's in London for the record sum of $45 million (€41 million). Art dealer Robert Landau who bought the painting did not wish to disclose the sale price but told AFP that the work had recently been valued at “100 million euros”.
“The world knows what we paid for and we will only sell it to someone we love and who will keep it in a nice place,” Robert Landau said before the official opening of the fair.
