Vincent van Gogh's painting "Chestnut Trees in Blossom" was publicly displayed in Hong Kong on Tuesday, ahead of an auction scheduled for next month. The Dutch master's work has not been publicly exhibited for more than 60 years, and hundreds of visitors came to the Sotheby's Maison exhibition space in central Hong Kong to see it.
The painting is expected to earn $180 million at Sotheby's auction in New York on 18 November. Scott Niichel, head of the Modern and Contemporary Art department at Sotheby's, stated that the work is expected to set a new all-time auction record for Van Gogh. "This is a period in Van Gogh's work that shows extraordinary optimism, frenetic energy, enthusiasm, passion and colour," said Niichel.
Van Gogh completed the work in May 1890, while staying in Auvers-sur-Oise in France, after being discharged from the psychiatric hospital in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. He died just two months later, on 29 July of that year, at the age of 37. Works from his Auvers period – the final chapter of his life – are rare on the art market.
The painting depicts chestnut trees in full bloom alongside three women in traditional Japanese dress and a man walking by. After Van Gogh's death, the work was inherited by his brother Theo, and later by Theo's wife Johanna van Gogh-Bonger and their son Vincent Willem. It then entered the collection of Samuel Fischer, founder of the German publishing house S. Fischer Verlag, before passing into the hands of George Buddy DeSylva, co-founder of the American record label Capitol Records.
Art collector Harriet Harris-Jonas purchased the painting in 1953, and the Blakiee family in 1975. The painting will be offered as part of a collection of 12 works that have not been seen for a long time, including paintings by Paul Cézanne and Claude Monet.
