International

If there was one conspicuous hole on the wall at the Metropolitan's recent exhibition Cézanne to Van Gogh: The Collection of Dr. Gachet  it was the infamous portrait of Dr. Gachet. Why infamous? This penetrating portayal of a worried looking man, one of two known versions painted by Van Gogh, is not only the most expensive painting ever purchased at auction but it comes with an astounding provenance. The portrait belonged to thirteen owners in its 100 year history among them the artist's brother Theo Van Gogh whose renowned collection is presently the subject of an exhibition in Holland. It also belonged to  Hermann Goering. When Japanese industrialist Ryoei Saito died of a stroke in March 1996 we could have seen two of the world's great masterpieces cremated with him. This had been Mr Saito's bizarre request when he became owner of  "Portrait of Dr. Gachet" painted by Van Gogh a few months before the artist took his own life. It took Saito only three minutes to close the bidding at $82.5 million in the auction room of Christies on 15 May 1990. Riding the crest of the Japanese buying frenzy he went on to pay the equally fantastic sum of $78.1 million for  Renoir's "At the Moulin de la Galette" at Sotheby's. This joyous work by Renoir is the other painting he ordered to be destroyed upon his death. Fortune intervened when Mr Saito's paper manufacturing firm Daishowa Ashitaka went into decline and he was forced to surrender the paintings. Rumour has it that Saito's creditor banks became owners and recently sold the painting discreetly to Sothebys in New York for circa  $10 million, a fraction of the $82.5 million paid at auction in 1990 by Saito. (The London Times, January 31, 1998, by Robert Whymant). This figure seems unlikely when you consider the Renoir actually fared better being sold again by private treaty through Sothebys in 1997 for a reputed sum of $44.5 million.  No official press statement has been released by Sotheby's and such is the mystery surrounding the fate of these paintings that the Metropolitan museum could not even use their considerable clout to borrow the Van Gogh for their current exhibition. The press is so captivated yet so confused by the subject that you still have headlines in newspapers as mainstream as the Financial Times 28th July 1999 announcing that we can all rest easy, 'Dr. Gachet' will not be destroyed. This, when Saito has been dead for over three years? No-one knows if Mr Saito would have been within his rights to take the paintings to the grave with him. It is an interesting question. Apparently his motivation was love not avarice. Not a case of nobody else would have the pleasure to enjoy them if he was no longer around, but something more akin to a pharaoh being buried with his treasures. Would his request have been honoured? If he had made it a legal condition in his will perhaps his lawyers and heirs would have had no choice. This author knows of no precedent. However people have been buried with their cars and jewellry before, why not paintings? Such an act would have provoked international outrage to the extent that even heads of state may have intervened with requests to stop the destruction. One can imagine a scenario where Chirac of France backed by the Louvre or Clinton backed by the Metropolitan would have stepped in to stop the egoistic whims of one man robbing the world of two such important works of art. In an unprecedented move, one can also imagine the Louvre and the Metropolitan joining forces to buy the paintings from Mr Saito at an even greater sum than the set record. Certainly, if they had not been saved from the flames, the art world would never have forgiven themselves for failing. The Editor, Raichel Le Goff Footnote : The exhibition Cézanne to Van Gogh: The Collection of Dr. Gachet finished at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York  August 15th 1999. It includes the other portrait of Dr. Gachet painted by Van Gogh on loan from the Musee d'Orsay. The exhibition will be travelling to its final destination the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam from September 24 through December 5, 1999.   ENTER THE METROPOLITAN's EXHIBITION HERE