Image of Vincent Van Gogh as an adult discovered. Article via DIYPhotography.net

Fascinating! He’s the third from the left – with the pipe.

Photography is probably one of the greatest tools for preserving history.  While present generations stand at a perilous place with all of our memories sitting on hard drives and SD cards, we are thankful for those who had to take the time to develop each shot into a physical medium.  Writings and paintings can only provide so much accurate detail and are often skewed by the perspectives of their creators, but photographs seem to preserve another level of historic accuracy.

Vincent van Gogh, the Dutch post-impressionist painter best known for The Starry Night, his insane preoccupation with selfies, and chopping off bits of ears long before Mike Tyson made it popular, has often been portrayed as a dark and brooding cloud in art history.  Yet, we have never seen a photograph of his face in adulthood…until now.

Known photographs of van Gogh in his youth have been confirmed for a while, but this week, a 1887 photo of van Gogh as an adult sitting around drinking with friends went to auction at The Romantic Agony auction house.  Along with the melancholy painter are pictured such greats as Paul Gauguin, Emile Bernard, Félix Jobbé-Duval, and André Antoine.

via Recently-Unearthed Photo Is the First Confirmed Image of van Gogh in Adulthood – DIY Photography

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