Painting by Pissarro and Tragic War History converge at the Van Gogh Museum

Girl in the Grass, painted with Pissarro's characteristic brushstrokes capturing light playing on grass, depicts a peaceful scene of a country girl on a sunlit landscape. This work may have offered some solace to art collector Jaap van den Bergh; he acquired it shortly after the German invasion of the Netherlands. In 1943, the family was forced to sell the painting in order to go into hiding. Jaap and Ellen van den Bergh survived the war, but their daughters, Rosemarie and Marianne, who were hidden elsewhere, were betrayed and killed.

After the war, Jaap van den Bergh reported that the sale of his painting was made under duress, but his request for restitution was not processed. A 2016 digitisation project by the Origins Unknown Agency (no longer active), turned up the Van den Bergh family’s report. The detailed description in the document enabled researchers to locate the painting in the collection of the Kunsthalle Bremen. This post-war report provided the missing link in the provenance, which has been researched by the Kunsthalle Bremen since 2009, and set off the search for Jaap van den Bergh’s descendants. 

A unique compensation agreement between the Kunsthalle Bremen – Der Kunstverein in Bremen and the heirs of the Van den Bergh family led to the temporary display of the painting at the Van Gogh Museum in the Netherlands. This agreement also furthered research into the family’s tragic history, which was supported by the Dutch Cultural Heritage Agency, the NIOD Institute’s Expert Centre Restitution and the Kunsthalle Bremen – Der Kunstverein in Bremen.

Girl in the Grass will be on display at the Van Gogh Museum for four months, until 9 March 2025.

Main Image: Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), Girl in the Grass, 1882, oil on canvas, Kunsthalle Bremen – Der Kunstverein in Bremen