The public will get a chance to decide if a photograph that scientists claim to be a rare image of Vincent van Gogh is really the artist or a simple case of mistaken identity.
Van Gogh painted more than 40 self-portraits but there are only two photographs in existence that are widely believed to be the artist — at the ages of 13 and 19.
The latest discovery, bought for just $1 in the early 1990s in an antique dealer’s shop, is the subject of a new exhibition that attempts to make the case for its authenticity.
The image, dating back to 1886, certainly bears a striking resemblance to the Dutch artist’s own work.
It shows a middle-aged man with a well-kept beard and a thin, long nose. He is wearing a plain suit and small bow tie. His hair is neatly combed back and he has a distinctive widow’s peak hairline.
The Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam has contested the case that the picture is the artist. But Albert Harper, director of the Henry Lee Institute of Forensic Science in the United States, who has worked on authenticating the photograph, is convinced.
As a part of the study, investigators matched the size of the forehead, the shape of the eyes and even individual hairs.
Images are overlayed on the photograph in the exhibit called Discovering Vincent van Gogh: A Forensic Study in Identification, at the Seton Gallery at the University of New Haven until March 4.
Artist Tom Stanford discovered the photograph while flipping through an album of cabinet card photographs, mostly of clergymen, dating back to the late 19th century at an antique dealer’s in Massachusetts.
”I saw it and thought it was Van Gogh right away, and the more I looked at it, the more I was sure,” he said.
He took the photograph to the photo historian Joseph Buberger, who had previously worked on identifying images of Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant.
Buberger came to believe the photograph was really the Dutch artist.
One sketch completed in Paris was particularly striking he said.
”Even the most minute detail matched up, even the smallest hairs on the beards matched up,” Harper said.
Buberger said he believes it is entirely possible that Van Gogh drew and painted his self-portraits based on the photograph. He points to the time period — Van Gogh produced most of his self-portraits at the time the photograph was taken — as evidence.
And after searching through databases, Buberger matched the photographer’s name, Victor Morin, which is printed on the front of the photograph, with an old studio in Brussels, a city where Van Gogh spent much of his time.
Even more, the research team claims that the only authenticated photographs of van Gogh’s face, at ages 13 and 19, are actually pictures of his brother, Theo. The photographs, which were taken in 1866 and 1873, do not match Van Gogh’s self-portraits, Buberger said. – Guardian Unlimited Â