Van Gogh, A landscape of the last manner – The collection of Baron Denys Cochin

The collection of Baron Denys Cochin

Van Goghnot found
A landscape of the last manner
See in the collection
“A dazzling landscape of his last manner”, says Vollard: no Van Gogh landscape carries Denys Cochin’s name in its provenance, only the Fleurs dans un verre^{[1, 2]}. The Metropolitan Museum’s Vollard catalogue makes Denys Cochin one of the very few buyers at Vollard’s Van Gogh exhibitions, from March 1896^[3]. His first purchase from Vollard, that month, was another Van Gogh, Les Alyscamps, now at the Kröller-Müller Museum^{[4, 5]}.
Sources (5)
1. 1.Ambroise Vollard, Souvenirs d’un marchand de tableaux, Paris, Albin Michel, chapitre VIII, « Amateurs et collectionneurs », p. 135 (Gallica, vue 161), p. 135, texte OCR.
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  « Quel musée on créerait avec tout ce qui a passé chez lui. Delacroix : Corinne chez les peuples pasteurs; Manet : la Serveuse de bocks, la grande Exécution de Maximilien, aujourd’hui au musée de Mannheim ; Corot : la Vue de Rome et l’Eglise de Vézelay, aujourd’hui au Louvre; Goya : Tête de la Reine; de Manet encore, une Course de taureaux, « la plus belle de toutes celles qu’a faites le peintre », me disait Renoir; de Cézanne : les Joueurs de cartes, aujourd’hui au Louvre (legs Camondo), des Natures mortes, des Paysages; de Gauguin, une des plus expressives toiles de Tahiti; de Van Gogh, un éblouissant paysage de sa dernière manière; de Degas, une Tête de femme qui faisait penser à un Van der Meer; de Corot, j’allais oublier un extraordinaire portrait de femme qui est devenu célèbre après la vente de sa collection, à laquelle M. Denys Cochin se résolut de son vivant. »
2. 2.Sotheby’s, New York, Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale, 28 octobre 2020, lot 127 : Vincent van Gogh, Fleurs dans un verre, 1890, notice et provenance, Provenance.
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  « Fleurs dans un verre. Oil on canvas, 16¼ by 13⅛ in., 41.3 by 33.3 cm. Painted in 1890. — Ambroise Vollard, Paris. Le Peau de l’Ours, Paris (acquired from the above in 1908 and sold: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Association ‘Peau de l’Ours’, March 2, 1914, lot 29). Galerie E. Druet, Paris. Denys Cochin, Paris (acquired in 1914). (probably) Elisabeth de la Tour d’Auvergne (née Elisabeth Bertier de Wagram), Paris. Knoedler & Co., London & Alex. Reid & Lefevre, London (acquired from the above in 1929). […] Alfred Lindon (formerly Lindenbaum), Paris. Seized from the above by the ERR, July 12, 1941 and taken to the ERR depot at the Jeu de Paume, Paris. […] Exchanged by Hermann Goering with the Galerie Fischer, Lucerne, October 20, 1942. Recovered by the Monuments Men from the Galerie Fischer Lucerne 1946. Restituted to Jacques Lindon, New York (the heir of Alfred Lindon). »
3. 3.Rebecca A. Rabinow (dir.), Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006, p. 39, 53, 129, 137, 149, 223, 271 et 395, et notice 42 par Jayne S. Warman, Paul Cézanne, The Cardplayers (pages transmises par la famille) ; p. 246 et n. 13, fig. 149 et notes, lues par la recherche plein texte d’Internet Archive (cezannetopicasso0000unse), p. 223.
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  « The two Van Gogh exhibitions, in 1895 and 1896–97, attracted very few buyers, but Baron Denys Cochin (1851–1922) (fig. 235) early on took an interest in Van Gogh’s work, which he began to buy in March 1896. […] Enthusiastic and indecisive, Cochin was always tempted by the canvas he hadn’t yet acquired but wanted each new purchase to harmonize with the rest of his collection. An audacious connoisseur, he also accumulated works by Cézanne and Gauguin. »
4. 4.Rebecca A. Rabinow (dir.), Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006, p. 39, 53, 129, 137, 149, 223, 271 et 395, et notice 42 par Jayne S. Warman, Paul Cézanne, The Cardplayers (pages transmises par la famille) ; p. 246 et n. 13, fig. 149 et notes, lues par la recherche plein texte d’Internet Archive (cezannetopicasso0000unse), p. 53.
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  « Of the nine Van Gogh paintings sold after the first exhibition (that is, from June 1895 to December 1896), five were bought by artists […]; two by dealers (Eugène Blot and Maurice Clouet); and two by collectors (Denys Cochin and Adrien Hébrard). These two early collectors were important both for the establishment of Van Gogh’s reputation and for the growth of Vollard’s business. Les Alyscamps was the first purchase from Vollard made by Cochin, a politician and a député de Paris (member of parliament), who in time amassed an important collection of paintings, many bought from Vollard. »
5. 5.Van Gogh Worldwide (RKD – Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis, Van Gogh Museum, Kröller-Müller Museum), Vincent van Gogh, Falling Leaves (Les Alyscamps), F 486, Kröller-Müller Museum, KM 108.668 : notice et provenance, notice F486, provenance.
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  « Kröller-Müller Museum. Falling Leaves (Les Alyscamps). Date c. 1 November 1888. Location made Arles. Oil on canvas, 72.8 × 91.9 centimeters. Catalogue number(s) F486, JH 1620. Provenance (description): J.-M. Ginoux, Arles (1888?); Ambroise Vollard, art dealer, Paris, 1896; D. Cochin coll., Paris, 1896; M. Fabre coll., Paris (r 1901); Eugène Druet, art dealer, Paris; A. Schuffenecker coll., Meudon; purchased by H. Kröller-Müller from A. Schuffenecker, April 1912 (fl. 10.000,-). »