Which Belgian painter bought Van Gogh's 'The Red Vineyard'?

Anna Boch bought Van Gogh’s The Red Vineyard. She purchased it at the 1890 Les XX exhibition in Brussels, where the painting was displayed soon after Van Gogh’s productive period in Arles.

Boch was a Belgian painter, art collector, and one of the founding members of Les XX, an influential avant-garde artists’ group. She was also the sister of Eugène Boch, a friend of Van Gogh whose portrait Van Gogh painted in Arles.

The work, painted in 1888, shows vineyard workers harvesting grapes beneath a striking red-and-yellow evening sky. It sold for 400 francs, a modest sum compared with the prices Van Gogh’s paintings would command after his death. The painting later passed through Paris and Moscow collections and is now held by the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts.

A common mix-up is the claim that The Red Vineyard was the only artwork Van Gogh ever sold. It is more precise to call it the only painting whose sale during his lifetime is documented by name with certainty; he may also have sold or exchanged other works.