Portrait of Vincent van Gogh
Currently on view
John Russell (1858 - 1930), Paris, 1886
oil on canvas, 60.1 cm x 45.6 cm
Credits (obliged to state): Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
The Australian painter John Peter Russell got to know Vincent at Fernand Cormon’s studio. He painted this portrait of his friend in 1886 in a conventional, realistic style. It is clearly influenced by photography, although the face and the hand still show Impressionist touches. The portrait was not so dark originally. Another artist, Archibald Standish Hartrick, met Van Gogh at Russell’s studio. He later recalled: ‘[Russell] had just completed that portrait of him in a striped blue suit.’ You can indeed just make out a few little blue stripes at the lower edge of the painting. Analysis has revealed, moreover, that the words ‘Vincent, in friendship’ were painted in red over Van Gogh’s head. In Hartrick’s view, this was the most accurate portrait of Van Gogh – more realistic than the likenesses done by other artists or any of Vincent’s self-portraits. Van Gogh was very attached to it. Years later, he wrote to Theo: ‘take good care of my portrait by Russell, which means a lot to me.
- Object number
- s0273V1962
- Dimensions
- 60.1 cm x 45.6 cm, 77.3 cm x 62.3 cm, 9.5 cm
- Provenance
- Probably exchanged by the artist with Vincent van Gogh, Paris, autumn 1886; left by Vincent van Gogh at the apartment of his brother Theo van Gogh, Paris; after his death on 25 January 1891, inherited by his widow, Jo van Gogh-Bonger, and their son, Vincent Willem van Gogh, Paris; administered until her death on 2 September 1925 by Jo van Gogh-Bonger, Bussum/Amsterdam/Laren; transferred by Vincent Willem van Gogh, Laren, to the Vincent van Gogh Foundation, Amsterdam, 10 July 1962; agreement concluded between the Vincent van Gogh Foundation and the State of the Netherlands, in which the preservation and management of the collection, and its placing in the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, to be realized in Amsterdam, is entrusted to the State, 21 July 1962; on permanent loan to the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh from the opening of the museum on 2 June 1973, and at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, since 1 July 1994.
- artist
- John Russell
- Credits (obliged to state)
- Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
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Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, In the Picture. Kunstenaarsportretten, 21 February-30 August 2020
Den Bosch, Noordbrabants Museum, Van Goghs intimi. Vrienden, familie, modellen, 21 September 2019-12 January 2020, no. 44
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Kyoto, Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, Van Gogh in Paris. New perspectives, 30 March-19 May 2013
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Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, Van Goghs brieven. De kunstenaar aan het woord, 9 October 2009-3 January 2010
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Brisbane, University Art Museum, University of Queensland, John Peter Russell : Australian impressionist, 25 February-19 March 1978, no. 44
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Galbally, Ann, art of John Peter Russell, 1977, pp. 33-34, 38-39, 41
