Stolen Van Gogh & News Source Accuracy

August 22, 2010 - 09:26

I was reading about the stolen Van Gogh painting yesterday on BBC News website and some other sites and noticed inaccuracies in some articles.

The first BBC article suggests that the painting was stolen before in 1977 and recovered a decade later whereas the second BBC article suggests that it was stolen in 1978 and, again, recovered a decade later.

However, the Telegraph (and others) report that the painting was previously stolen in 1978 and recovered two years later.

The BBC articles contain a picture of a self-portrait of Van Gogh not the stolen painting. The Daily Mail article has a picture of a different painting of a vase with flowers (Van Gogh loved vases with flowers eh). The Telegraph article has a picture of the correct painting.

Here's a black & white photo of the actual painting - it's called Vase with Viscaria. It's known as Poppy Flowers in Egypt.

These two Van Gogh gallery sites both say that it was painted in 1886 not 1887 as reported by the news sites.

This blogger from Egypt has a blog post about the theft which she has been keeping up-to-date. It has still not been found.

 


Update (16:24 22/08/2010): The second BBC article has been updated with a picture of the correct painting.

Update (08:49 23/08/2010): The Daily Mail article has been updated with a picture of the correct painting.