Van Gogh scholar Bogomila Welsh-Ovcharov, with auctioneer Franck Baille, left, and publisher Bernard Comment, has called the discovery of sketches purported to be by Vincent van Gogh "a culmination to every art historian’s life." ( JACKY NAEGELEN / REUTERS )Vincent van Gogh — tortured, brilliant, finally earless and ultimately dead by his own hand — fascinates. Bogomila Welsh-Ovcharov, the Toronto-based Van Gogh authority backing the discovery, has found herself in a battle with the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which has dug in its heels on its position — held, by the way, since 2007, when its owners first brought the drawings to the museum to be examined — that the works are laughable fakes. Van Gogh, unlike his countryman Rembrandt, whose works can only be authenticated by a specialized Dutch government agency, has no such keeper of the flame. Welsh-Ovcharov, backed by a close colleague, the British Van Gogh scholar Ronald Pickvance, has every right to her opinion, as does the museum to its own.

Source: thestar November 20, 2016 14:35 UTC