Sunset at Montmajour

For a century after its creation this canvas vanished into a Norwegian private collection with uncertain attribution, authenticated only in 2013 by the Van Gogh Museum — one of the most significant art-historical events of the early twenty-first century. Van Gogh visited Montmajour, the ruined Benedictine abbey on a rocky hill east of Arles, repeatedly in the spring and summer of 1888, climbing to paint panoramic views that excited him enormously. He described the site to Theo in letters of August 1888, noting that the vast plain of La Crau spread below with the Alps visible in the distance and the ancient abbey ruins making the landscape feel timeless. The authentication process involved comparison with the detailed letter descriptions, pigment analysis, and the specific canvas weave, establishing this as a major addition to the Arles period catalogue. It depicts the scrubland and sky of Provence with the full Arles palette he had developed by midsummer 1888 — the same period as the Harvest at La Crau and the first Sunflower canvases. Currently held in Norway.

The composition divides into a vast, luminous sky occupying more than half the canvas and a low, richly textured landscape below. Thick impasto in warm golds, ochres, and greens records the sun-bleached Provençal scrubland. The sky is worked with long, sweeping strokes that convey the heat and openness of the southern afternoon.