A Young Van Gogh Mystery
By Joelle Steele
Sometimes it’s hard to determine who’s who in photographs of family members. This is especially true when there aren’t many photos to use for comparison and the ages of the people in the photos are different, even if only by a few years. Faces change and develop, especially during the teenage years. And only about half of all families have generation-to-generation resemblances. So, trying to identify a face that is clearly labeled as “V.W. van Gogh” and finding that it may not be the artist Vincent Willem van Gogh (1853-1890) piqued my curiosity.
The photo in question (left) is in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands, which was founded by Vincent Willem van Gogh (1890-1978) the son of Vincent’s brother Theodorus (Theo) (1857-1891). The boy in the photo is probably about 13-15 years old.
It was originally identified, probably by the label on it, as the artist, Vincent Willem van Gogh. But, more recently it has been identified as being a young Theodorus (Theo) van Gogh. But could it be another brother, Cornelis (Cor) (1867-1900), or Theo’s son Vincent Willem?
Well, we can immediately eliminate Theo’s son and Cor as neither bears any resemblance at all to the young man in the photo. No matches of any kind to ears or facial features.
So let’s start from scratch and measure and compare the faces of Vincent the artist with the young man in the photograph.
If the unidentified young man is Vincent, the photo would have been taken ca. 1866-68. The facial proportions in the above comparison offer an almost perfect match. This is probably because the two men would be very close to each other in age in these two photos, with Vincent at age 19 and the unidentified at about 13-16. But there are two major mismatches: the ears and the lips. Like bones, ears don’t lie, and the difference in the lips is simply far too great. That full mouth with pointed crista philtri (the lip points) even shows up in Vincent’s self-portraits. So no, the unidentified young man is definitely not Vincent.
If the unidentified young man at left is Theo, the photo would date ca. 1871-73. The facial proportions in these photos do not match as well as they do in the comparison of the unidentified young man with Vincent. However, that could be because the unidentified young man is so … well … young. His face is not yet fully mature, and Theo is 21 (center) and 32 (right). But he has Theo’s lopsided mouth and his mis-matched ears (the right is longer than the left) which also protrude. Those features are not present in brother Vincent. Conclusion: the young van Gogh is definitely Theo.
This article last updated: 10/11/2017.
