Pictures by Wojtek Radwanski. Video by Damien Simonart

Poland unfurled an art exhibit on Friday in honor of its singular Van Gogh painting, a remarkable early landscape revered in millions that was once peddled by a merchant for the equivalent of a pint of beer.

The piece “Country Huts Among Trees” hails from 1883 when the penniless Dutch artist was honing his painting craft amid the bucolic surroundings of The Hague.

The diminutive oil painting, alternatively titled “Farmhouses Among Trees,” is “worth noting for its humility and for showcasing an entirely dissimilar perspective of Van Gogh,” commented Agata Smolnicka, co-custodian of the Warsaw exhibit.

He painted it with a limited palette, and not many who are familiar with his ‘Starry Night’ French phase are aware of his Dutch phase,” she declared to AFP.

“Works from The Hague are relatively rare,” Teio Meedendorp, an expert at Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, which authenticated the unsigned work, conveyed.

“He created approximately 75 pieces there but only one-third survived. The majority were either lost or destroyed over the years,” he explained to AFP.

The canvas was found in a carpenter’s loft, along with a collection of Van Gogh’s other early works, after he relocated overseas.

The carpenter eventually sold “that junk” — as he called them — for a song to a hawker who peddled the pictures from his handcart.

“He brought the works to a cafe… Anyone who bought him a round of beer received a Van Gogh,” exhibition consultant Juliette van Uhm wrote in the show’s catalogue.

“Some canvases were given to children to play with; they tied them around their waists as if they were aprons,” she added.

Many were saved by a discerning tailor who tried to buy them all up. They were later exhibited and sold, with the Polish Van Gogh ending up in Switzerland.

Charles Zbigniew Carroll-Porczynski, a Polish collector stationed in Britain, made a purchase of the artwork in 1987 and subsequently gifted it to the Catholic Church in his home country.

A fresh exhibit at the Museum of John Paul II and Primate Wyszynski in Warsaw delves into distinct aspects of the masterpiece.

The painting was described as “Van Gogh in the stage prior to becoming the renowned Van Gogh” by Stefania Ambroziak, one of the co-curators. She observed that Van Gogh was at this time in the process of mastering oil paint and experimenting with color applications.

Van Gogh, by this juncture, had already invested substantial effort in perfecting his sketching skills, even though experts believed that he was not a natural talent such as Picasso or Toulouse-Lautrec.

“When you see juvenile work by Vincent, it’s a big surprise he became an artist,” Meedendorp said, laughing.

“Because he was not very good. I mean he had no natural feel for perspective and proportion.”

What he did have was speed, which is evident in the painting on show in Warsaw.

“You can distinguish the hand of a very quick painter, working wet-on-wet very quickly. And this is a wonderful example of it,” Meedendrop said.

Though the Polish painting’s palette is less vibrant than the brilliant shades often linked with Van Gogh, Meedendorp remarks that it evidences his inherent talent for colour.

“His talent in colour mixing and contrasting, particularly with the reddish and green tones, was exceptional,” said Meedendorp.

“Van Gogh was a natural colourist. However, it wasn’t until he truly studied and absorbed colours in Paris, did he evolve into the exceptional painter we know,” added Meedendorp.

The exhibition entitled “Van Gogh. The Stories of One Painting” will be on display in Warsaw until the end of December.

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