PARIS (AP) – A rare painting by Dutch Impressionist master Vincent van Gogh from a street scene in the Montmartre district of Paris will be on public display for the first time before auction next month.
Sotheby’s auction house said the work, painted in 1887, has remained in the same family collection for more than 100 years – outside the public.
It will be exhibited next month in Amsterdam, Hong Kong and Paris before an auction scheduled for March 25 in the French capital.
“It’s an important painting in Vincent van Gogh’s work, because it dates back to when he lived in Paris with his brother, Theo,” Etienne Hellman, senior director of Impressionist and Modern Art at Sotheby’s, told the Associated Press.
Van Gogh moved to Paris in 1886 and lived in Montmartre. He left the capital in 1888 for the south of France, where he lived until his death in 1890.
“Before that, his paintings are much darker … In Paris he discovers color,” Hellman said. “Color blows in painting.”
“Montmartre Street Scene” describes a windmill called Pepper Mill, seen from the street under a bright sky, with a man, a woman and a little girl walking in front of the wooden palisade that surrounded the place.
“Paris marks this period in which … the major Impressionists influence his work,” Hellman said.
Sotheby’s said the painting had previously been published in seven catalogs, but had never been exhibited.
Claudia Mercier, a bidder for the Mirabaud Mercier house, said that “it is also an important painting, because there are very, very few of them remaining in private hands … especially since that period, most of them are now in museums”.
Sotheby’s estimated the value of the painting at between 5 and 8 million euros (between 6.1 and 9.8 million dollars). This did not reveal the identity of the owner.
It will be exhibited in Amsterdam from March 1-3, Hong-King from March 9-12 and in Paris from March 16-23.
Pepper Mill was destroyed during the construction of a boulevard in 1911, but two similar windmills are still present today on Montmartre Hill.