The gun that killed Vincent van Gogh will be auctioned off

Auction house Auction Art will auction off a very special find at theHotel Drouot in Paris: the gun with which Vincent Van Gogh committed suicide. It is a Lefaucheux revolver that was discovered in 1965 by a farmer who found it in the same field where Van Gogh was found wounded on July 27, 1890 in Auvers-sur-Oise(Val-d’Oise). After it was found, the gun was given to the owner of the Ravoux Hotel in Auvers-sur-Oise where the Impressionist artist died on July 29, 1890, two days after he was seriously injured.

In 2012, the weapon was first presented with the moniker “the most famous weapon in the history of art” as part of the publication of the book Aurait-on retrouvé l’arme du suicide? by Alain Rohan and was then exhibited at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in 2016. Although its authentication will never be formally established, its provenance is nonetheless deemed reliable by Dutch experts. The gun, in fact, is a 7mm, the very same caliber as the gun that had caused the painter’s wound. However, in 2011, American scholars Steven Naifeh and Gregory W. Smith, authors of the book Vincent van Gogh. The life, were of the opinion that the artist did not commit suicide, but was the victim of an accident caused by boys who were playing with the weapon in question. Since the two young men were the artist’s companions in those areas, van Gogh did not report them, thus supporting the suicide hypothesis. Auction Art does not rule out the theory that the two young men were the cause of the incident.

The auction will be held on July 19, and the estimate of the gun is between €40 and €60,000.

Pictured: the gun that killed Van Gogh (photo credit AuctionArt/Drouot)

The gun that killed Vincent van Gogh will be auctioned off

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