The Parsonage Garden returns to Groninger Museum after major restoration

Vincent van Gogh’s painting The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring (1884) went back on view at the Groninger Museum on Tuesday 31 March following an intensive restoration process. The conservator Marjan de Visser worked on the painting for about three months and made several new discoveries. She determined that parts of the composition had been changed in a previous restoration in 1903. For more than a century afterward, the work contained details Van Gogh had never intended it to. Since Van Gogh painted The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring in 1884 on the grounds of his parents’ parsonage in the Dutch town of Nuenen, the work has moved around. It accompanied the artist from house to house and was eventually sold. It was bequeathed to the Groninger Museum’s collection in 1962. The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring was on loan to the Singer Laren museum when it was stolen on 30 March 2020. Thanks to the efforts of the art detective Arthur Brand, the painting resur