Stephanie Brown21. Still LifesThough there's a question as to whether Fruit in a Bowl was the still life Gauguin showed at the 8th Impressionist Exhibition, there's no...
Stephanie Brown20. "Tall, dark, rather handsome"It may seem that there is nothing new under the sun. And then there's a portrait that hasn't been seen before...
Stephanie Brown19. Not a nice manWhen I was growing up in North Carolina, the worst thing that my grandmother could say about someone was that he was not a nice man. My...
Stephanie Brown18. Summer 1886Clovis Gauguin was seven years old the summer that his father discovered Brittany.
Stephanie Brown17. Introducing Pont-AvenBy 1879, a train ran once a day from Paris to Finistère, Land's End, at the eastern edge of Brittany...
Stephanie Brown16. The Villa BruneTwo men connected by two circumstances: their addresses and paintings by Gauguin. Not just any paintings, either...
Stephanie Brown14. 1889: The Volpini Exhibition Connecting Louis Roy to Paul Gauguin was one of my first tasks. Roy was difficult to track down, but one connection was easy to find: ...
Stephanie Brown12. April 14, 1923: Tableaux, pastels & dessinsCatalogue des Tableaux modernes, Hôtel Drouot, 14 Avril 1923. Institut national de l'histoire de l'art, Paris, VP 1923/254 I knew from...
Stephanie Brown15. During a pandemicGeorges Seurat, Le Cirque, 1891 We are now at day 47 of sheltering at home. We're not in quarantine, technically, because none of us are...
Stephanie Brown11. 1929: How to make a painting disappearIn June 1929, the art dealer Paul Reinhardt sailed from New York to Southampton, England, on the White Star Line’s “Majestic.” Reinhardt...
Stephanie Brown13. "No known provenance prior to its appearance at auction..."Eustache Le Sueur, The Rape of Tamar, about 1640 The Metropolitan Museum of Art This morning's New York Times features an article titled...
Stephanie BrownWelcome: Start Here.This blog is a mystery, a travelogue across time and place, and a memoir about life and art, museums and research.
Stephanie Brown9. 1885: From the provinces to ParisLouis Georges Eléonor Roy was born in Poligny, in the foothills of the Alps, on July 23, 1862. His father, Jean-Eléonor, was 42; his...
Stephanie Brown8. 1964: Looking for Louis RoyMeanwhile, back in Stockton, I began studying the provenance for Flowers and Fruit that the Wildensteins had put together in 1964. I...
Stephanie Brown10. In which the Getty rearranges its storageLast week the Parisian daily Le Figaro announced that the Getty Museum had downgraded a sculpture previously attributed to Paul Gauguin...
Stephanie Brown7. 2016: The Chase BeginsSo here I was with a painting by an important post-Impressionist artist that no one in the museum world outside of Stockton, CA, had...
Stephanie Brown6. And speaking of reattributions...There's been a painting newly re-attributed to Van Gogh this week. This self-portrait that lives in the National Gallery in Oslo has...
Stephanie Brown5. The ProvenanceOn my first visit to the Haggin Museum, in January 2016, I saw Flowers and Fruit: a fairly traditional still life of a few bumpy apples...
Stephanie Brown4. Authenticity & ReattributionsPoppies got my attention because the circumstances—the regional museum, the work questioned by experts—were so similar to Flowers and...
Stephanie Brown3. Authenticity: A Painting Moves UpstairsA disputed Van Gogh is authenticated by experts.