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Something rotten in the State of Holland :


The awkward and completely unscientific report of Jan Van Gelder from 1958 , which was the basis
of the pointless falsification of the honest painting the Glaneuse, nr. 23 from the first Official Oeuvrecatalog of the paintings of Vinccent van Gogh.
For the sake of the reader I will now show this report in the English language so that everybody outside this tiny country can verify the content of this expertise :

The painting with a woman turned to the right in a sloping cornfield measures r4, 8 x 32,3 cm is painted on canvas and afterwards glued on cardboard. It comes from the art-dealer de Vries in Arnhem ( Steenstraat 109 ) and was described as an authentic work of Vincent van Gogh by J.B.de la Faille and W.van Beselaere. The piece was also provided with an expertise of Albert Plasschaert, artcritic. W. van Beselaere situates the painting in the so called Drente-period, de la Faille earlier. The painting is signed down under on the right side " Vincent ". After careful study I am convinced that this work cannot be of the hand of Vincent .
The colour scheme is completely different and also
the touch differs from the early works we know from the Hague, Brabant or Drente. I don,t know any painting to match directly with this one ; neither could I find a name of a painter, nor could I find an example of Millet ( etching or painting ). I thought a moment of Van Rappard or a Belgian painter, but more is to say about a dating after 1890 and then by one of the many painters from the Hague-, Laren - or Gelderland- school. I think here of painters like Van Ingen, Van der Weele etc. Against Van Gogh speaks in fact every touch and also the unplastical form of the allongated woman.
The lighter colour scheme hardly appears befoe 1890 :in general this is heavier, darker. After 1895 though a lighter palet becomes more normal under the influence of for example the pointillists. One only thinks of the paintings of Van looy or P.Rink and many others. If we accept that we have to do with a painter, working in the manner of the Hague-school ten we have to date the productiondate even around 1900 or 1905. A date of this kind is in my opinion not impossible for this painting, but when this assumption is correct, Van Gogh cannot be the maker. A technical
research of for example Prof. Froentjens could determine if the paint of the signature has the same consistence as the rest of the paint.
Is there a difference, what I presume,then the most probable assumption is that a scetch of a painter from around 1905 , later, around 1910 when the work of Van Gogh became wellknown, was provided with a false signature.
In general the early paintings are not signed; the signature differs from the signature on the few signed paintings from the Dutch period, but corresponds most with the writing of Vincent from the Etten- period ( April- December 1881 ).
So it is most probable that a drawing, known by reproduction and photograph ( for example 24 drawings from the "Dutch period " , collection Hidde Nyland 1907 ) has been chosen as an example for this signature.
I am sorry that the result of my research is negative, in other words surely no V.van Gogh;
another painter who could have made this little painting is not known by me.

Jan Van Gelder
In the next contribution I will give an objective but critical analysis of this report.

Philip Silbernberg

Something rotten in the State of Holland (continued)

My work at the department of Esthetics and philosophy of art at the University of Amsterdam(1978/1979) and at the University of Louvain (Belgium ) from 1965 - 1971 where I wrote my study about the Sociology of Art, which took me five years about( 1971- 1976) and which later, after I had to leave the University of Amsterdam because of a lack of a formationplace, as was the reason they gave , was used at least three years to teach Esthetics and Philosphy of art by Prof.dr. Dethier at the University of Amsterdam.(1977-1980).
Lets say plainly that I learned reading articles about art by doing so one year as a scientific cooperator for the department of Esthetics and Philosophy of Art. One year my main task was to read every article in the Dutch language about Art and Etshetics. I did this for Prof .dr. Jan Aler, who was chairman that period of the worldcongress of Esthetics and Philosophy of art and he used my work to give the contribution of the production in the field of the Dutch , Flemish and even south-African language area.
Aler was content with my work and even prolonged my contract that period. My task was to give a short content and my own critical opinion about the articles I read and the maximum length was one A-4 sheet. That was a good learning school which was forming me in a positive sense and influenced m in reading in a critical and objective way articles about art.
Also I assisted as cooperator a workgroup of sociology of art by Dr. Willem Zwiers, who gave an introdction to that field. After this period of a year was ended some students asked me even to give a continuation-course. But as mentioned before they could not use me there anymore. My surprise was great when I was phoned by students of the University of Amsterdam, after I was working three years at the HBO-level as teacher politicolgy in Amsterdam who wanted to buy "my book ", because they had discovered that my doctoral script about the sociology of art, called " From Marx till Goldmann ", was used by Prof. Dethier entirely to teach his course , for the students Esthetics and philosophy of Art at the University of Amsterdam for three years.
After a visit to the home of the students who phoned me I began to understand what happened.
One of the about 50 copies I had given to the Professor Dethier in 1976, who I met in the room where I worked. Other copies were sent to several
University-libraries and to the Dr. Boekman foundation in Amsterdam, specialised in lietterature about the Sociology of Art.
The coincidence was that the feminin half of the
studentcouple studying Philosophy of Art worked half time at the library of the Boekman Foundation and recognised my copy, corresponding to the one in the library of the Boekman Foundation.
The problem was that the Professor copied my doctoral-thesis completely, included the footnotes. I was vey shocked and insulted that the man did not contact me at all and never asked my permission. This was a very shocking and negative happening in my live.
On the other hand it shows that I am not a nobody, though I am treated as such in this horrible false country. Now again I have horrible experiences the last ten years with the equally false Van Gogh Museum. Life is not a dance on roses. Anyway my experiences from the past have given me the power to analyse in a critical and objective way articles about art, as the one showed above of Jan van Gelder.
Philip Silbernberg,
will be continued

THE REPORT OF JAN VAN GELDER (1958) :


An objective but critical analysis of the report from 1958 responsible for removing the nice original and authentic painting called la Glaneuse ( F-23) from the third Oeuvrecatalog of Vincent from 1970, still under the name of the in 1959 deceased de la Faille by the incompetent or cheating functionaries of the Expertise Institute ,a private initiative of Vincent Willem van Gogh, the engineer, to get rid of " boaring " people with Vincent-paintings , though recognised by the most important Vincent- experts of the past
for important scientific reasons ( honesty, originality and age and style and recognisable Sien Hoornik posing as Glaneuse) :

Lets look at the report of Van Gelder.

As I know much more now in 2012 by several important scientific pigment researches by Dr.Erhard Jaegers from the laboratory of Bornheim, Germany and tremendous photos by the Institute Lumiere Technology from Paris and the very valuable expertise of Benoit Landais from 2003 until 2006 I can make a perfect analysis of this weak report, absolutely insufficient .

FIRST MISTAKE :

A sign that Professor van Gelder was feeling uneasy with this task is visible from the blunt blunders he made already in the sentence :

" The piece was also provided with an expertise
of Albert Plasschaert, art-critic. W.van Beselaere situates the painting in the so called Drente-period, de la Faille earlier ".

I think that the mistakes, made here are ignificant for the fact that Jan Van Gelder was no Vincent-expert at all, but was only asked to
evaluate the work for his important BOBO-charcter
and his " flexible " character and also even for his complete lack of fundamental knowledge about the painting of Vincent van Gogh in the Dutch period.
The fact is that not de la Faille but Albert Plasschaert supposed in his expertise of the painting from 1926 that it was from the Drente-period and that de la Faille for that reason took it as nr.23 in the first Catalog, puttng it in the Drente-period.
In 1937/1938 W .van Beselaere changed this and puts the work in the The Hague- period, for the obvious reason that he recognises the landscape as a dunelandscape around The Hague and the person on the painting as Sien Hoornik.
Also the professor makes a mistake by calling Albert Plasschaert an art-critic, confusing the painter and salesleader of Oldenzeel with the cousin , the art-critic Albert Plasschaert, a sign again of the estrangement of the professor with the researchfield.

SECOND MISTAKE :

" The signature has been put with a carmine like paint and added later ".

Was the above made first mistake probably a concequence of the fact that the professor, specialist in 17th. century drawings , did not know exactly what was going on in the Vincent-expertise of his time than the mistake to call an original honest signature false and added later a sign that the professor was uneasy in evaluating paintings as he probably did not know exactly what to do with the quartz lamp he used to observe the painting or that the professor was cheating to serve the demand of the Expertise Institute to remove the painting from the oeuvre-catalog, as one can read already between the lines in the invitation of Margrit de Sabloniere.
And a " schnabbel " of 75 guilders is a nice and welcome financial asset and the problem of the paper was solved by using paper of the University of Utrecht, which in fact was a kind of theft, as the activity of the Expertise Institute was independant of the University of Utrecht! Her we see already a form of small administrative corruption of the professor. The paper of the University was for free.

After a long research-process ranging from 2002 - 2005 I am now 100 % sure that the signatue Vincent on the painting is original and not added later.
As the professor claims the opposite we will show the evolution of this important insight that the painting carries an authentic and honest Vincent signature. This is a very important point because
the constatation of Jan Van Gelder and merely this constatation leaded to the refutation of the originality of F-23 in the third Oeuvre-catalog from 1970, under the redaction of Professor Abraham Hammacher , where the painting officially
loosens its status as original Vincent and disappeared from the frontside to the backside of this Catalog under the header " Rejected works " as " False ", expertised under the auspices of the Expertise Institute, Amsterdam 1958.
Only the mention FALSE SIGNATURE IN LOWER RIGHT is the explication of this rejection.

As I already told above the fact that the signature was honest under my UV-lamp in 2002 was a sign that something was deeply wrong with the observations of Jan Van Gelder. As I am a careful man and make also mistakes from time to time I showed the signature to two restorers , both official members of " Restoratoren Nederland ",
first to Richard Hartskeerl, from Haarlem, still working as restorer and to Mrs. Dora van Dantzig, restorer and daughter of Maurits van Dantzig.
Richard Hartskeerl agreed with me that th sinature was OK and not false, after checking te painting with his powerful UV-installation.
Afterwards Mrs. Dora Van Dantzig not only confirmed the authenticity of the signature, but even told me that the signature was put " wet on wet", which means that the signature was put by the painter at the moment that the paintinf was not yet completely dry.
As I told above the Van Gogh Museum was not answering my questions in 2003 about this odd fact that the signature was NOT FALSE.
In the autumn of 2003 I met the French independant Vincent van Gogh expert Benoit Landais, who lived until 2008/2009 in Holland. I showed him my two paintings, the Glaneuse and the Man with the hat and heard from him that both paintings were original and that I had to think of a value of at least 2000000 Euro ( 2 Miljon euro)for the Glaneuse and at least 10000000 Euro( 10 Miljon Euro) for the Man with the Hat as this was an extremely beautiful and important work of the master Vincent.
will be continued.

Philip Silbernberg

A Rectification of the above shown translation of the report of Jan Van Gelder :

As I just remarked I forgot a considerable piece of text in the translation above of the report of Van Gelder.
To prevent that the reader becomes disoriented I will now add this very essential bit :
I will therefore repeat the missing alinea written by Van Gelder included these details. I am sorry for the inconvenience :

I DO NOT KNOW ANY PAINTING TO MATCH DIRECTLY WITH THIS ONE; NEITHER I COULD FIND A DRAWING FUNCTIONING AS PRIMARY STUDY.
THE SIGNATURE HAS BEEN PUT WITH A CARMINE LIKE PAINT AND ADDED LATER. WITH A QUARTZ LAMP A SPOT DOWN UNDER IS THE ONLY ONE DIFFERING FROM THE REST.PROBABLY THE SIGNATURE IS NOT PUT WITH OILPAINT NEITHER. NEITHER COULD I FIND A NAME OF A PAINTER etc etc ( = EXTRA TEXT VAN GELDER)

SO I hope that the reading of this article will be intelligeble now.

Philip Silbernberg

THIRD MISTAKE :"the signature has been put with a carmine like paint":

A typical mistake of Van Gelder, as a black and white specialist of 17th, century drawings, is also the incapicity to give the colours in a painting the proper name.
The fact that the man not even can distinguish
between ocre and carmine says enough. The signature on the Glaneuse is pure ocre and has nothing to do with carmine.This fact is proven by me and several restorers who consider the signature as autentic and also by Landais with is application of the colometric method and the pure scientific prove is given in 2005/2006 by the laboratory-research of Dr.Jaegers who proved not only that the signature is in ocre, but also , with the help of the colometric study of the painting by Landais, discerned exactly where that variation of ocre came back in other spots in the painting, which proves that the colour of the signature was in the palet of the painter of the Glaneuse. Interesting is that the exact pigment of the signature is findable in the last touches Vincent has done when finishing the painting, corresponding for example exactly with the pigment in one of the small touches, representing very tiny other glaneuses on the background. That the professor suggests that the colour of the signature is strange in relation to the rest of the work is a complete false observation.Not impossible was that Van Gelder was
colourblind or that he consciously searched for reasons to burn the honest work of the family Ras.
And this last possibility is in my opinion the best explication.
It is a corrupt and unscientific report and a shame for the history of art in Holland that such a horrible report was accepted withoout any control by any laboratory, though even the man himself indicates the necessity of that procedure, when he writes that Professor Froentjes from the laboratory of The Hague should do so.
It is also a big mistake of the RKD who was responsible for the third Oeuvrecatalog and surely a big mistake by Abraham Hammacher to axxxept this nonesense report as an official document with the power to falsify the Glaneuse.

will be continued
Philip Silbernberg

MISTAKE NUMBER FOUR :INCAPICITY of Van Gelder TO GIVE THE PRODUCTIONDATE OF THE WORK.

When an expert has to evaluate a painting the first thing he has to do is to research the age of the canvas. A procedure absolutely necessary
as a basis of a correct and sound expertise. The professor , in all his foolishness, left the cardboard , covering the complete backside of the work, and making it impossible to study the age of the canvas intact as his pupil later Van Tilborh too.
These people are in fact pure dreamers and have no idea what a proper expertise of a work from the past means. They talk only rubbish and nonsense, a quality which unites the professor of arthistory of the university of Utrecht with his equally foolish student Louis van Tilborgh, whose standpoint we will analyse in a later stadium of this study.
The fact that the professor jumps from Van Rappard
and Van der Weele, to van Ingen and Rink and van Looy shows the insecurity of the guy . An insecurity which is normal when one doest not even check the age of the canvas. A very big and elementary mistake.
Landais showed me the technique of calculation of the knots in the canvas by a quadrat cm. , a technique who was tought to the Van gogh Museum by Mr Johnson in 2007, but for Landais since I know him in 2003 an elementary procedure in determining the age of the canvas and making it by doing so comparable with other canvasses from the time.

will be continued

Philip silbernberg

MISTAKE NUMBER FIVE: " The colour-scheme is completely different and also the touch differs from the early works we know from The Hague, Brabant or Drente ".

Vincent van Gogh was a pure colorist and realist and was dependant of the weather, the light etc.
The fact that the professor uses the bright colours of the Glaneuse as a pretext to dismiss the painting is also ridiculous and shows that the guy did not understand anything of Vincent. Vincent made bright colours when the sun was shining, as is the case with the Glaneuse and can also be observed in the works of the summers in Nuenen where he also produced paintings with the same colour-scheme.Van Gogh had in general also a lighter palet in The Hague, probably under the influence of Mauve who also often had a light palet and painters like Gabriel and van der Weele
used also a bright and light colour-scheme.
The argument of the professor shows that he not even knew the Hague School-painters properly.
To use this brighter palet to deny the painting the right to be of Vincent is a shame and to use this as an argument to put the painting in the beginning of the 20th. century is completely unscientific and unrealistic. Also we must never forget that Vincent was influenced by the French painters and especially Millet who also used a bright palet.

will be continued
Philip Silbernberg

MISTAKE NUMBER SIX :

" With a quartz lamp a spot down under is the only one differing from the rest".

This was the only correct observation, so far as I can see, of the professor in this report and shows that he told a lie when suggesting that the signature was added later. Indeed there is a little spot down under to the right some centimeters next to the signature who becomes black under the UV-light. A fact also seen by me and Landais and Jaegers. This spot though has nothing to do with the signature and in this observation the professor shows that he saw that the signature reacted in a normal way under the quartzlamp, because he says litterally that that spot is the only one differing from the rest. We have to wonder why he says that the signature is added later , because there were no reasons for this hypothesis. Was it a plan to serve maybe the engineer, the master of the Expertise Institute and to ridiculise De la Faille in this way ??
Anyway it is surely not kosher.
Will be continued
Philip Silbernberg

MISTAKE NUMBER SEVEN: " Against Van Gogh speaks in fgact every touch and also the unplastcal form of the alongated woman":

Lets talk now about Sien Hoornik who is visible in numerous drawings of Vincent from the Hague and shows the alongated form of the woman he loves. A woman who was ugly , who was elder than him, who had had the smallpocks and who was long and thin. Here we see a complete denial of the traits of the model Vincent used for one and a half year and shows the fact that in this sentence
Van gelder even used the stupid remark about the long pierlala to dismiss the authentic work of Vincent and also to dismiss Sien hoornik, the long thin and ugly woman.
Horrible to see all these nasty tricks and to see how this incapable observer succeeded in dimissing the honest observations of serious Vincent-specialists from the past .

will be continued
Philip Silbernberg

MISTAKE NUMBER EIGHT : "In general the early paintings are not signed ".

This remark is incorrect and correct in the same time. Vincent signed when he considered a work as a in his opinion completed work . So the signature
tells us that he was content with the work and that he did not merely consider this painting as a study, because his studies where in general unsigned, but not the works he considered as finished and completed products.

Philip Silbernberg
Will be continued