Quite often it is sheer luck that allows us to confirm an intuition by carrying out proper research in order to enlarge our knowledge of an artist's materials. In 1967, a collector brought a painting by Van Gogh to the Kunstmuseum of Basel. The author, who at that time was chief restorer of that institution, found himself confronted with a painting that suggested colour changes. The question was, were they due to a correction on the part of the artist, or to discolouration?
The painting was one of the two versions of Two Children, which Van Gogh painted at Auvers-sur-Oise in June 1890. The problem was as follows. The original painted canvas had been folded over the right and left edges of the stretcher and attached with tacks in the same way as the unpainted tacking edges of the canvas at the top and bottom of the stretcher. As a result, the width of the painting had been reduced by approximately 2,5 cm on each side.
The background colour was mainly of different tonalities of blue in the upper part, and of shades of white in the lower area; whereas the two painted strips folded over the edge of the stretcher were of a violet colour at the top and pink at the bottom. Was this change caused by discolouration, or the result of an overpaint applied by the artist? A closer examination with a binocular microscope showed a continuity in the ridges left by the brushstrokes that passed over the edge of the stretcher, even where they systematically changed from light-blue to violet and from white to pink immediately after passing over the angle of the stretcher. This ruled out the possibility of an overpaint.
A few minute particles of the paint layer could be taken at the losses and cracks that had occurred on the angle of the stretcher and near the tacks," Microscopic examination of cross-sections of these samples confirmed the presumption that discolouration had occurred. Near the surface, where the pink layer had been exposed to light, the colour had faded; whereas in the depth of the same layer, the colour still had its original brightness. And where the pink had not been exposed to light, i.e. on the edges of the stretcher or under a layer of another colour, it had retained all its original intensity, right up to the top.
Chemical analysis by Dr Muhlethaler revealed that the colour in question was an eosine-based lake." Eosine is a colour first made in Paris in 1871 and prepared as an artist's pigment some years later. One of the many names it had been given was 'geranium lake'. It is known from Van Gogh's letters that he used this colour quite frequently?
The findings of the technical analysis of the Two Children confirm that the painting originally had a pink component in its background which has since faded. More precisely, the lower area of the background was pink, and the thatched cottages above were violet. This observation seemed to be of some considerable significance for our knowledge of Van Gogh's oeuvre, but because the fading had only been demonstrated in a single painting, the author confined himself to an oral communication during the 1967 meeting in Brussels of the lCOM Committee for Conservation.
Many years later, this assertion was confirmed by observations made at an exhibition in May 1988 organised by the Kunstmuseum of Olten, Switzerland, on the influence of Van Gogh on Swiss art," Among the exhibits were three copies of our version of the Two Children: one in watercolour on paper (23 x 22.5 cm) by Giovanni Giacometti, and two others in oil on canvas (51 x 46 cm, and 52 x 46 cm) by Cuno Amiet. Both artists, who were born in the same year (1868), were enthusiastic about avantgarde art, and about Van Gogh in particular, whom they considered a leader. The extraordinary opportunity to examine an original by the great master was given to them in 1907 by their friend Richard Kisling, the art collector and hardware dealer from Zurich. Perhaps acting on the advice of his painter friends, Kisling had just acquired the Two Children for 2,000 francs. This was the first painting by Van Gogh to be exhibited in Switzerland. It was left on loan at the studio of the two artists for one year to enable them to study it closely. In their shared studio at Oschwand near Bern, they not only studied it, but also made several copies, including those that were shown at the Olten exhibition.
Both copies by Amiet are the same size as the Van Gogh original was when it was brought to the Basel Kunstmuseum in 1967 Amiet's copies measure 51 x 46 cm and 52 x 46 cm, Van Gogh's painting 51.5 x 46.5 cm. The latter was obviously the model for the copies. It was therefore perfectly logical to deduce that the Van Gogh painting had been mounted onto a smaller stretcher before 1907, the date of its purchase by Richard Kisling. By the time Amiet made his copy, the pink in The Two Children had already begun
its fading process. The nuances Amiet so faithfully copied can tell us about on the state of Van Gogh picture at the time. It is very likely that Amiet did not use geranium lake but another colour that was more resistant to light.
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