Credit: Maurice Tromp/Van Gogh Museum

Museum researchers may have pinpointed the spot where the Dutch master painted his final work.

Vincent Van Gogh, the Dutch Master post-impressionist painter, is known all over the world for his incredible, moving works of art. Obviously, you didn’t need me to tell you that. But part of the study of Van Gogh’s works is not just their composition and technique, but what could’ve inspired them. For example, one of Van Gogh’s most famous works, the Starry Night, was inspired by the view from Van Gogh’s own asylum room window. One painting that has managed to elude identification so far is Van Gogh’s very last painting before his death, the aptly named Tree Roots. With such a simple concept as the roots of trees, you’d think it’d be impossible to pin down their origin, but that’s exactly what a team of researchers did.

The linchpin to this monumental discovery was a postcard dating back to the very early 1900s. This card depicts a hillside near the entrance to the French village of Auvers-sur-Oise. This discovery was made by Wouter Van der Veen, the scientific director of the Institut Van Gogh, who then brought it to the attention of the Van Gogh Museum. The Museum, with the help of dendrologist Bert Maes, compared the roots depicted in Tree Roots with the roots shown on the card, and came to the conclusion that they are almost definitely the same scene.

Credit: Institut Van Gogh

The site was promptly tracked down, where it was discovered that the largest tree trunk was still standing tall. A wooden structure was put up for the scene’s protection, and a brief ceremony was held by Emilie Gordenker, the general director of the Van Gogh Museum. Willem van Gogh, great-grandson of Vincent’s brother Theo, well-known as the first lover of his brother’s art, was also in attendance.

“The sunlight painted by Van Gogh indicates that the last brush strokes were painted towards the end of the afternoon, which provides more information about the course of this dramatic day ending in his suicide,” explained Van der Veen.

“The overgrowth on the postcard shows very clear similarities to the shape of the roots on Van Gogh’s painting,” Van Gogh Museum researcher Teio Meedendorp added. “That this is his last artwork renders it all the more exceptional, and even dramatic. He must often have passed by the location when going to the fields stretching out behind the castle of Auvers, where he painted several times during the last week of his life and where he would take his own life.”