The three prints of Van Gogh’s lithograph ‘Old Man Drinking Coffee’ have been reunited for the first time since 1882. The three works can be seen from Wednesday in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
The Van Gogh Museum already owned two copies. “One of the three was lost for a long time, but was recently rediscovered and sold at auction shortly afterwards. The new owner is now giving the lithograph on long-term loan to the Van Gogh Museum, with a view to donating it permanently in the long term.” In May this year, the third lithograph was auctioned in Leiden for 220,000 euros.
The work, which dates from Van Gogh’s time in The Hague, features the coffee-drinking war veteran Adrianus Jacobus Zuyderland (1810-1897). He lived in a poorhouse in The Hague and died in 1897. According to the museum, the man is Van Gogh’s most depicted model. “He can be found in numerous versions, in various poses and costumes, equipped with a wide range of attributes.”
Cheap prints for the people
The missing piece, which Van Gogh once gave as a gift to his fellow artist Anthon van Rappard, was purchased by a research assistant at the museum. “After her death, she will leave her lithography to the Van Gogh Museum. Thanks to the promised donation, it is the first time that the Van Gogh Museum has a complete edition in the collection, which the museum will preserve as national heritage.”
Van Gogh made a total of nine different lithographs: eight in The Hague, and one in Nuenen in the Netherlands (‘The Potato Eaters’). He wanted to make cheap prints for the people, so that everyone had access to his work. “In doing so, he imitated the English printmakers he adored, whose socially committed black-and-white illustrations appeared in popular magazines,” the museum said. However, nothing came of the plan.
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