Van Gogh self-portrait actually not Van Gogh

What did Van Gogh Museum senior researcher Louis van Tilborgh discover while gazing into the eyes of his subject of study? That maybe he wasn’t looking at old Vincent after all. The 1887 painting that Tilborgh was admiring, now on view in the show “Van Gogh in Antwerp and Paris: New Perspectives” at the Amsterdam museum, may not be a self-portrait, as was previously believed. Rather, it may be a likeness of the painter’s brother and loyal ally, Theo.

Van Tilborgh came to this startling conclusion when he noticed that the 1887 portrait, of some Van Gogh wearing a blue jacket and a straw hat against a blue backdrop, depicts a man with shaved cheeks and an ochre (not red) beard. “On top of that,” a press statement declares, “this man’s ear has a fine rounded shell, unlike Vincent’s but like Theo’s.”

If you remain skeptical that the work — which was completed during a period in which Theo and Vincent lived together in Paris — portrays Theo, just heed the advice of the press statement: “Once you start to ask questions, you may sometimes be surprised by the answers. Familiar works of art may appear in a new light: such discoveries help to keep one’s gaze sharp and fresh.”

Such wide-eyed wonder has also recently led the museum to figure out that a Van Gogh painting of laborer’s shoes dates from much later than originally believed and that “The Garden with Lovers,” depicts not the village of Asnières, as was formerly posited, but Montmartre, in Paris. Oh, and they’ve also cleared up that the painting “Wheatfield with a Lark” is actually a picture of a partridge.