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PRICELESS PORTRAIT: Alexander Reid.
When Scottish art dealer Alexander Reid returned from Paris with two paintings by Vincent van Gogh, his father berated him for bringing such "atrocities" home and sold them to a French dealer for five pounds each.
It did not matter that the paintings, a portrait of Reid and a still life of a basket of apples, were in fact, gifts to the young Scot, who had lived for several months in Paris with Vincent and his brother, Theo, in Montmartre in 1886-87. The two paintings and another van Gogh portrait of Reid are included in an exhibition of the Dutch painter's works that opened recently at Edinburgh's Dean Gallery, part of the National Galleries of Scotland. The exhibition is based on British "pioneer collectors" who were among the first to appreciate Impressionist painters.
Frances Fowle, curator of the exhibition, said the anecdote about the sale of the two paintings by James Reid came in a book by Scottish student Alexander Hartrick, who met van Gogh in Paris in 1887.
Fowle said that in later life Alexander Reid, who became a major art dealer, bemoaned the sale of his two paintings and that "he hadn't realised what a great artist van Gogh would turn out to be and how marketable he would be." Hartrick himself almost bought another still life with apples for two francs, but decided not to because he would have to carry it back to his hotel!
COMPLIED BY NIMI KURIAN
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