Art researchers at Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum say a famous work by Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh – long thought to have been a self-portrait – was in fact a rendering of his younger brother Theo.

“According to current opinion, Vincent van Gogh never painted his brother Theo, on whom he was dependent,” the Van Gogh Museum said in a statement. But senior researcher Louis van Tilborgh now believes the 1887 painting of a man wearing a straw-colored hat and a navy jacket was in fact Van Gogh’s brother Theo, Vincent’s junior by five years.

“The conclusion is based on a number of obvious differences between the two brothers,” said the museum, pointing out dissimilar features, including the neatness of the subject’s beard and his round-shaped ear, “something Vincent did not have.”

“The form and colour of Theo’s beard, more ochre than red, is also an indication”, as well as the man’s “eye-colour and the style in which he was dressed supports the new insight,” the museum said.

Theo van Gogh died six months after his older brother shot himself in a wheatfield at the age of 37 in Auvers, France, in July 1890.

Via [AFP]