Garden corner with butterflies, Van Gogh - 1887 from the old master collection

This painting by Vincent van Gogh has been sold at auction in New York for an estimated €30.5 million in May 2024. It is Coin de jardin avec papillons, meaning 'garden corner with butterflies', and is believed to have been painted in the spring of 1887.

The painting shows butterflies flying above a flower bed in a public garden in Asnières, north of Paris, on the Seine. Van Gogh had come to Paris in 1886 and regularly went out of town to paint a year later.

Nearby Asnières was a favourite destination for him, as it was for day-trippers and other artists like Claude Monet. Van Gogh walked the five kilometres daily from Paris to the village, where he would create dozens of paintings.

(Source; NOS)

Vincent Willem van Gogh (Zundert, 30 March 1853 - Auvers-sur-Oise, 29 July 1890) was a Dutch painter. His work falls under post-impressionism, an art movement that succeeded nineteenth-century impressionism. Van Gogh's influence on expressionism, fauvism and early abstraction was enormous and can be seen in many other aspects of twentieth-century art. The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam is dedicated to the work of Van Gogh and his contemporaries. Van Gogh is considered one of the greatest painters of the 19th century. However, this recognition came late.