The National Galleries of Scotland just added another Van Gogh painting to its catalog, without spending a cent to buy it: it’s one of the painter’s many self-portraits, often sketched, often not finished, and in this case, turned over so he could paint on the other side of the canvas.
Frequently short of funds in his early years, Van Gogh often re-used canvases; over the years at least nine other paintings have been found on the back side of museum canvases, hidden behind layers of other material.
In this case, the portrait was found behind Head of a Peasant Woman, a painting from Van Gogh’s time in Neunen, Netherlands, when he was experimenting with styles, subjects and colors.
The painting will be shown in an upcoming exhibit at the National Galleries highlighting the Scottish collectors who were early buyers of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art. The museum says it will eventually restore the portrait. The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, in a recent exhibit of his self-portraits, showed a number of them in glass cases so both paintings could be seen.
