A lengthy legal dispute over a patch of land in Auvers-sur-Oise, France, that is believed to be the place where Vincent van Gogh made one of his final paintings, has come to an end, with a court ruling in favor of the French couple that owns the land.
Auvers-sur-Oise’s mayor, Isabelle Mézières, has for five years argued that the embankment was public property, but earlier this month, an appeals court in Versailles sided with Jean-François and Hélène Serlinger, the owners of a residence that includes where van Gogh made Tree Roots (1890).
The judge affirmed that the site does belong to a part of the public road, as the mayor has argued, and ordered the municipality to cover €2,000 in legal expenses.
The Serlingers purchased the property at 48 Rue Daubigny in 2013. At the time of the purchase, the couple was unaware of the site’s significance within van Gogh’s oeuvre.
In 2020, Van Gogh Institute director Wouter van der Veen learned of the plot of land after comparing an early 20th-century image that matched the roots in Van Gogh’s painting to the work itself, which was created in the the days before his suicide in a nearby wheat field. The unfinished painting is now housed in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
Mézières has criticized the ruling, insisting that the site is culturally significant to the French town. In a statement published to Facebook, she said the roots are part of the town’s history and pledged to appeal the decision. “These roots are not a commodity—they belong to the people of Auvers,” she wrote.
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