Lost works by Vincent van Gogh
The events that befell the early paintings and drawings by Vincent van Gogh in the period prior to the posthumous recognition of Vincent van Gogh (1853 – 1890) as an innovative artist show how the appreciation of his legacy changed his reputation in a relatively short time. A part of the work that remained with his family when he left the Netherlands must be considered lost, and the remaining early works of Vincent van Gogh tell an incomplete story. Van Gogh himself wrote that he had stored some 70 painted studies in the attic of  his studio when he left The Hague, but only some 25 of these are now known. Some of those involved in the early trade have been interviewed by journalists and art researchers, but the literature on Van Gogh relies and focuses largely on his known existing work. To Breda. The father of Vincent van Gogh, the Nuenen pastor Theo van Gogh, died unexpectedly on 26 March 1885. Vincent moved to Antwerp on November 27. In the following months his mother, Anna-Cornelia van Gogh-Carbentus, decided to move to a smaller home for her and her daughter Wil. They found  an upper part of a house on the corner of the Nieuwe Ginnekenstraat and Wapenplein (nowadays Van Coothplein 33 A) in Breda and moved there on 30 March 1886 (coincidentally Vincent's 33rd birthday). Vincent's mother had a part of the furniture, including Vincent's possessions, stored because the new house had insufficient space. It ended up in a warehouse owned by a carpenter, Adrianus Schrauwen, living in the Ginnekenstraat. When the furniture and boxes were later retrieved, Vincent's sister Wil discovered traces of woodworm in the crates and it was decided to leave it with Schrauwen in  the attic. Section::::"Rubbish" of Vincent. In the period from November 1885 until the end of February 1886, Vincent wrote from Antwerp to his brother Theo in Paris various letters about the upcoming move in March 1886 of his mother and sister. He wondered if he had to help with arrangements in Nuenen. Vincent went to Paris at the end of February 1886 and he did not help his family with packing. When the family moved, the things that Vincent had left behind when he went to Antwerp, including wood engravings and books, were stored in a carpenter's attic in  Breda. The carpenter's name was Adrianus Schrauwen. In a letter from Arles to his sister Wil from June 1888 Vincent writes: According to specialist researcher Jan Hulsker in his book "Van Gogh door Van Gogh" (1973) the word rubbish refers not to Vincent's own work, but to books and woodcuts, illustrations which he had taken from magazines and such. In a postscript of a letter in early August 1888, Vincent asks Wil to bring him some wood engravings and prints that had remained in Breda. Role of Schrauwen. This could mean that Vincent considered his work in the  attic at Schrauwen lost. In any case, in 1888 Theo and Wil knew of belongings that had been left behind in Breda. In a letter from Vincent to Wil (end of October 1889) he says that Wil and her mother would move shortly thereafter to Leiden. The population register in Breda mentions that the move took place on November 2, 1889. On this basis, it is assumed that in the beginning of November 1889 his mother and Wil reclaimed their possessions from Schrauwen, but left Vincent's boxes because of the alleged woodworm. Stokvis writes in his "Research about Vincent  van Gogh in Brabant" (Nasporingen omtrent Vincent van Gogh in Brabant, 1926) on page 27: Years later, Schrauwen considered himself the rightful owner of the boxes because nobody had ever picked them up, he broke them open, took the folders with drawings, sketches and watercolors, and used the wood for various other purposes. Role of Couvreur. Seventeen years later, in 1903, Schrauwen invited a market merchant Mr. J.C. Couvreur to sell some belongings, such as a small can, a pot and other kitchen equipment. Couvreur offered 2.50 guilders and Schrauwen accepted on condition that he also take the rubbish which  he had stored in his attic for so long. Couvreur agreed and stored the approximately sixty paintings, one hundred and fifty loose canvases, eighty pen drawings and between one hundred and two hundred chalk drawings in the basement of his house in the Stallingstraat in Breda. He spoke of this in an article in the newspaper "De Telegraaf" on 25 April 1938: After clearing his basement of the bags with nude drawings, Couvreur wanted to get rid of the remaining pictures as well and he approached a Rotterdam paintings merchant, called De Winter, who thought it was worthless, according to  Couvreur in an article on 18 February 1950 in the Breda newspaper "De Stem". Couvreur also delivered some paintings to Frans Meeuwissen, the owner of the café at the corner of Ginnekenstraat and Stallingstraat, who sold them or gave them away to customers. If someone offered Couvreur a beer, he could have a Van Gogh. Van Goghs for a dime. Couvreur was planning on selling the remaining canvases and drawings on the market, he tells in a "Telegraaf" newspaper article: According to his story one day on his way to the market in the Ginnekenstraat the tailor C. Mouwen approached  him to buy some paintings. Couvreur sold him six canvases for ten cents each. Later in the day a maid of Mouwen came and asked if she could have another six for the same price. In a short time the amounts went tenfold, and then again: The majority of the retrieved works was bought by C. Mouwen, who loaned some fifty paintings for an exhibition with art dealer Oldenzeel in Rotterdam in January 1903 and sold 25 paintings at an auction on 3 May 1904, and an unknown number went to his cousin W. van Bakel, lecturer at the Royal  Military Academy in Breda. Because the names of the buyers have not all been recorded, traces of early works by Van Gogh continued to get lost until the early 20th century. Breda Museum's "Lost and Found" exhibition. Breda Museum hosted an exhibition called "Vincent van Gogh: Lost and Found" between November 2003 and February 2004. The show-piece of the exhibition was a painting "Houses near the Hague", which the museum claimed had been authenticated by their experts as painted by Vincent on the basis of x-ray analysis. The painting had come from the so-called Marijnissen collection  of Barend den Houter, a tax official at Breda. This collection had formerly been examined by experts in 1940 and declared unimportant, consisting of forgeries or work by little known contemporaries. However, Breda Museum said they had uncovered a connection between den Houter and Vincent's mother. The Van Gogh Museum said they were sceptical about the authenticity of the painting.