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The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam says a painting found at a garage sale in Minnesota that art researchers believe is a long-lost Vincent van Gogh portrait isn’t the real deal. 

Experts with New York-based LMI Group, an art research firm, believe the Dutch artist painted the portrait during his stay at a psychiatric hospital in the south of France in 1889. It was spotted by an anonymous antique collector in 2016 at a garage sale in Minnetonka in a bin with photographs and old frames. The collector paid $50 for it.  

The painting depicts a bearded fisherman mending a net and smoking a pipe. The art firm, LMI Group, has named the painting “Elimar” after the words written in the bottom right-hand corner. 

The art firm has poured years of research and thousands of dollars into trying to determine the painting’s origins. In the end — they 

 detailing their conclusion — it’s a Van Gogh.

But some in the art world disagree. The previous owner of the painting submitted it to the Van Gogh Museum in 2018 and the museum determined the painting wasn’t a real Van Gogh painting.  

LMI Group confirmed to MPR News that the Van Gogh Museum once again denied the painting’s authenticity last Friday. 

“We are puzzled why the Van Gogh Museum invested less than one working day to summarily reject the facts presented in our 456-page report without offering any explanation, let alone studying the painting directly rather than looking at it reproduced as a JPEG,” LMI Group said in a statement. 

LMI Group believes the painting could be worth $15 million, but is it really a Van Gogh? Robert Snell, the co-owner and painting specialist at Revere Auctions in St. Paul, joined Minnesota Now to talk about the dramatic saga unfolding in the art world. 

The following has been edited for length and clarity. Use the audio player above for the full conversation.

Are rare paintings found in Minnesota often?

 You do hear about things like this happening every so often in the art world. It is certainly rare for Van Gogh to show up in Minnesota, so it certainly caught my attention. I read the story, I was very curious, I saw an image of the painting. I spoke with a few other people who are also in the art industry to get their opinion about it, and it was really interesting, and I certainly dug a little bit deeper into the story.

I would say most of the people that I spoke with had a lot of questions. The image itself looks a little atypical to what we typically know of as Van Gogh’s artworks. No one that I spoke with was certainly an expert in Van Gogh, but they did certainly have a lot of questions.

If not Van Gogh, who would have produced this painting or something like this?

 What was interesting is the artwork was signed “Elimar” and from most of the Van Goghs that I’ve seen in museums, he would sign it Vincent, or Van Gogh or simply with a V. And I think that I would like to see other artists that may have had that last name. They do have a interesting theory about how that name came to be on the painting, but I think there are some questions to ask about it.

 It’s very hard to find any type of recourse in this case. You hear of people going through litigation in instances like this, but most of the time, if the authority says that the work is not by that artist, there’s very little you can do.

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A New York-based art research firm believes a painting purchased from a garage sale in Minnetonka for $50 is by the famous Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. But the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has twice denied its authenticity. 

Live, down to earth, unscripted interviews that aim to connect, inform and entertain. Real people share real stories with Nina Moini. It’s journalism that doesn’t take itself too seriously and puts people first.

Van Gogh or no? Painting found at Minnesota garage sale stirs controversy about authenticity

a painting of a man in a hat smoking a pipe

Van Gogh or no? Painting found at Minnesota garage sale stirs controversy about authenticity

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