To be a Van Goph or not to be

from w
Over the years I have looked at the paintings in the Melbourne Gallery and admired the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. There has always been this small Head of a man attributed to Van Goph and apparently valued at $5 million. It wasn't painted in the thick brush style of Van Goph, but okay, I'm not one to question the experts. I really love Van Goph's flower paintings, starry nights, wild grassy fields, but this particular portrait was a bit ordinary.

Well, this weekend at least two of the Australian papers ran a story of the announcement by a probably embarrassed National Gallery Director of Victoria - after intensive research and sampling of the paint, etc. - that this was not a Van Goph after all!

Senior Arts writer of The Australian newspaper, Gabriella Coslovich, wrote that in August last year when the painting was exhibited at the Edinbugh Festival an art critic of the Sunday Times questioned its authenticity so the next twelve months a forensic kind of investigation was conducted on the painting.

Not that it's a deliberate fake, but it's by someone from the same time. Well, now the value is really knocked down! That's how silly the 'valuation' is on paintings by 'Big Names'! So when a rooster becomes a feather duster as they say, what then is the value of this 'ordinary' painting?