It's not so much a whodunnit as a where-is-it, the "it" being a lost masterpiece of Vincent van Gogh. As the New York Times explains, the mystery revolves around The Portrait of Dr. Gachet, which van Gogh painted in 1890, just weeks before taking his own life. The portrait of a real-life doctor hung in two public museums—the Stadel in Germany and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York—throughout most of the 20th century before being sold at auction in 1990 to a Japanese buyer. It hasn't been seen in public since. The story tracks the efforts of art sleuths who specialize in just this kind of discreet detective work and presents a best-guess scenario: The painting is likely in Switzerland, in the hands of a very rich and very private family.
After being bought in 1990, the painting is believed to have ended up in the hands of an Austrian financier who sold it privately in 1998 to an unknown buyer. Four experts tell the newspaper they think the Invernizzi family of Italy now owns the painting and likely keeps it at their villa on Switzerland's Lake Lugano. A Sotheby's official who brokered the 1998 sale would not confirm, and a spokesperson for the Invernizzis, who made a fortune in cheese, would not comment. The full story details the detective work involved, the history of the painting itself, and a question central to it all: "Do collecting families have any responsibility to share iconic works of art with the broader public?" Read it here. (More Vincent Van Gogh stories.)
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