When he died in 1999, the philanthropist Paul Mellon left the National Gallery of Art in Washington the largest gift in its history: $75 million plus nearly 200 paintings, many of them masterpieces by artists like van Gogh, Manet, Cézanne, Monet and Renoir.
But not everything found its way to the museum. As stipulated in his will, some artworks would remain in his various homes under the stewardship of his wife, Rachel Lambert Mellon, during her lifetime. Now a spry 103, Mrs. Mellon, who lives in Upperville, Va., decided Christmas should come early to the National Gallery. She is giving the museum “Green Wheat Fields, Auvers,” from 1890, considered to be one van Gogh’s most important landscapes. The painting goes on view Friday with six other canvases by the artist.
Measuring about two-and-a-half by three feet, “Green Wheat Fields, Auvers” was thought to have been painted in Auvers-sur-Oise, France, following van Gogh’s voluntary confinement at the asylum in St.-Rémy. While there, he painted what are often described as his “pure landscapes,” capturing the countryside he saw around him. Devoid of figures, the painting is consumed by a windswept field, rendered in dramatic rich greens and blues, with his sweeping brushwork and thick impasto.
The couple bought the work from a New York dealer in 1955 and since then it has hung, unframed, above the fireplace in the Mellons’ Virginia living room. (During the Mellons’ ownership, the painting has only been publicly shown once, at the National Gallery in 1966, in an exhibition of their collection and that of Mr. Mellon’s sister, Ailsa Mellon Bruce.)
“In his letters, van Gogh talks about being absorbed in a sea of windy grass,” said Mary Morton, the gallery’s curator of French paintings. Within weeks after painting “Green Wheat Fields, Auvers,” van Gogh killed himself, yet the paintings he left from those last few months, Ms. Morton said, are “classic, great and super vibrant.”
