Tea at Trianon: Van Gogh’s Sister

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, April 28, 2021

Van Gogh’s Sister

From Art Net:

Vincent Van Gogh’s bouts with mental illness are well documented. But a new book makes a startling revelation: that his sister, Wil van Gogh, was able to pay for her own mental health treatment by selling 17 of his works upon his death.

The new book, The Van Gogh Sisters by Willem-Jan Verlinden, which will be published in April, details correspondence between the three Van Gogh sisters; Vincent’s brother, Theo; Theo’s wife, Jo Bogner; and other friends of the family.

The hundreds of letters, which are only in Dutch and have never been published before, are held in the Van Gogh Museum archives in Amsterdam. A senior researcher at the museum, Hans Luijten, describes them as “a real goldmine, with wonderful observations.”

“One by one, we intend to publish them in the near future,” he says. (Read more.)

julygirl said...: They would all be multi-millionaires from selling just one of his paintings if they were alive now.; April 28, 2021 at 2:59:00 PM EDT