Travel ban for ‘fragile’ Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’

The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam said yesterday its version of “Sunflowers” will no longer be allowed to travel after restoration work showed it was in a “fragile” condition. The museum in the Dutch capital is one of only five in the world with a copy of Vincent van Gogh’s masterpiece, and it rarely goes abroad, with the last time being in 2014.

But international experts involved in the restoration said that even that was too much for the 130-year-old painting, meaning that it will now “stay at home in Amsterdam”. The restoration found that the painting was “stable but fragile”, the museum said in a statement.

It will go back on display in February. “Sunflowers” has been lent out only six times since the museum opened in 1973 with the last time to the National Gallery in London in 2014, so it could hang next to that museum’s own version. The other versions are in the Neue Pinakothek in Munich, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Seiji Togo Memorial Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Museum of Art in Tokyo.