Newly discovered Van Gogh drawing on display

AMSTERDAM

Hidden in a private collection for over a century, now a newly discovered drawing by Vincent van Gogh can be admired for the first time at an Amsterdam museum.

“Study for Worn Out,” which depicts an old man sitting in a chair, was sketched by van Gogh in November 1882 when he was just starting the career that would later produce masterpieces like “Sunflowers.”

The owners, a Dutch family that bought the pencil drawing in around 1910, asked the Van Gogh museum to authenticate it and experts confirmed that it was indeed a “new work” by Van Gogh.

“This one has never been seen before anywhere. It’s the first time that this drawing is out in the open,” Teio Meedendorp, senior researcher at the Van Gogh Museum, told AFP.

“It comes from a Dutch private collection where it has been for a very long time. And this the first time and occasion that the world is able to see it,” he added.

The new drawing will be on temporary display at the museum until Jan. 2 before returning it to the owners.

The drawing depicts a bald, elderly laborer from a pensioners’ home dressed in a waistcoat, trousers and boots, sitting on a wooden chair with his head in his hands.

The Van Gogh museum already owns a similar drawing called “Worn Out,” which the artist made at about the same time and said he preferred.

Both drawings are part of a series of “hundreds and hundreds” of sketches that Van Gogh made when he was living in The Hague and learning the artist’s trade.

Meedendorp said it was a “total surprise” to find out that it did.