For some, a trip to Hong Kong means skyline views, bustling street markets and a taste of the city’s vibrant culture. For hundreds of visitors this week, the destination was a painting, a Vincent van Gogh masterpiece that has not been publicly exhibited in more than six decades.
Among them was Li Shanshan, a 50-year-old art lover who travelled around two and a half hours from the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen to see Châtaigniers en fleurs, or Chestnut Trees in Blossom, with her own eyes.
“I'd never heard of this painting before, so I wanted to see it with my own eyes,” she said.
Painted in May 1890, the work depicts a massive chestnut tree crowned with blossoms, its flowering canopy dominating the canvas. It belongs to the final months of Van Gogh’s life, when the Dutch artist was living in Auvers-sur-Oise, a village in France where he died about two months later, aged 37.
It is one of around 70 works Van Gogh created after leaving the psychiatric asylum in Saint-Rémy, where he painted his celebrated The Starry Night.
In the final months of his life, he worked at a remarkable pace, producing an average of about one painting a day.
For visitors, the Hong Kong preview offers a rare opportunity to encounter a little-seen work by one of the world’s most celebrated artists before it goes under the hammer in New York.
The painting is expected to fetch around $180 million at Sotheby’s auction on November 18. Scott Niichel, of Sotheby’s modern and contemporary art department in New York, said it could set a new auction record for a Van Gogh work.
Paintings from the artist’s final Auvers-sur-Oise period rarely come to market, making the work a significant draw for collectors, museums and investors. Its long absence from public view has also added to the interest surrounding its exhibition.
Chestnut Trees in Blossom will be auctioned as part of a collection of 12 works that have remained largely unseen, including pieces by Paul Cézanne and Claude Monet.
The sale will test demand for high-value art amid wider economic uncertainty, as collectors continue to compete for rare works by major artists.
But for those making the trip to Hong Kong, the appeal goes beyond the expected auction price. For a few moments, they can stand before a painting that has spent decades away from public view — an encounter that may be difficult to repeat once it leaves for New York and its next owner.
(With agency inputs from Reuters)