New York USA (Global News)_There’s something very strange going on with that Still Life, Vase with Daisies and Poppies. Van Gogh painted this during a rather strange period in his life when he had cut off his ear and spent months in a mental hospital. He completed it weeks before his death. But that’s not half the story. Sotheby’s in New York City had never seen its auction room so filled with anticipation as the painting went up for auction from USD 32 million, to USD 42 million and when it rose to USD 48 million, all bets were off. A call from China changed the status quo. The gavel came down at close to USD 62 million, the highest for a van Gogh still life at an auction.
The winning bidder Wang Zhongjun is a movie producer who helped bring Fury, the movie starring Brad Pitt to cinemas and has ambitions of founding China’s version of The Walt Disney Company. With a Chinese now being the owner of a very desirable van Gogh adding to the excitement that the acquisition of Pablo Picasso by a Chinese real estate magnate in 2021, the Chinese media is hailing China as a powerful force in the global art market. In 2016, Gustav Klimt was sold by Oprah Winfrey for USD 150 million to an anonymous Chinese buyer.
However, clouds have risen over this latest acquisition by Wang. There are two others linked to the purchase; Sotheby’s invoice was paid through Islandwide Holdings, a Caribbean shell company with Liu Hailong listed as the lone director. And there’s Xiao Jianhua, an influential tycoon of China’s gilded age, a Hong Kong billionaire now serving jail time in mainland China but controlling an offshore network of more than 130 companies with USD 5 billion in assets.
When van Gogh arranged those wild daisies and poppies into a vase in that little rustic village of Auvers-sur-Oise outside of Paris in 1890, little did he think that 130 years later, this painting would be embroiled in the makings of a modern-day cloak and dagger flick. The painting was completed at his friend and physician Dr. Gachet’s home and may have been gifted to him in lieu of treatment. After van Gogh died, the painting was acquired by a Parisian collector and later a Berlin art dealer, a series of German collectors, and in 1928, the co-founder of the Museum of Modern Art in New York A Conger Goodyear.
It has since done its rounds in museums but has now vanished from the public eye. Of the 400 odd oils painted by van Gogh in those last years, about 15 percent are in private hands while the others are exhibited at museums, permanent galleries, and arts institutions around the world.
Art has become the mode to whitewash a number of criminal fronts and ‘white gloves’ (proxy shareholders meant to hide true company owners) are rife. Liu has at least four offshore companies registered in his name, all under Xiao’s vast empire.
By siding with the government in 1989, Xiao became one of China’s richest men, acquiring control of banks, insurers, and brokerages in addition to gaining stakes in coal, cement, and real estate. But preferring to stay out of the limelight, Xiao enjoyed a quiet life at the Four Seasons attended to by a bevy of female bodyguards. And there’s Wang who also lists among some of China’s wealthiest and opened a private museum in Beijing to show the van Gogh and Picasso paintings.
But there is no apparent reason why this triad would have joined forces to acquire the painting, although one fact does emerge. Xaio may have acquired an asset that can easily be transported in a private jet across borders devoid of scrutiny by banks and the government. And so, the daisies and poppies live another day to tell their tale.
